"this is sixth form poetry, not Keats or Yeats"
Submerged beneath sediments of ancient ash and bone, the variety of absence suggests the magnitude of loss; high-precision ageing unearthing fountains that loom above the scene of the crime. Living mountains that smother the air and wilfully suck the blame from prying, pointing fingers. Buried deep in the records …
Beneath dusted peaks of mountain dew A dense and rigid backcloth skulks, Worn down and compacted with Fractured decades of aged powder; Trodden into rocky outcrops To lie barrenly against This frozen, ancient soil. Subtle shifts of these forgotten rocks Ripple across subterranean sediments, Dislodging once-stable foundations That now cascade …
Beneath shadows Of Spring Mountains The rain dove arcs Across a barren sky, Its trembling shadow Rolling listlessly Above abandoned towns Of silver and gold, Whose former occupants Drift aimlessly, Tracing invisible contrails With covetous, translucent fingertips. Sinking in these sandy seas The rain dove plummets Beneath the waves; …
Choking on the excessive vapours Of our abandoned debauchery Your stunted shoots flail awkwardly In artificial chambers of soil and sedge. Your weathered hands Fly too close to the sun, Goaded by an elevated fixation That cannot support the Consequence of its ambition. Meanwhile, beneath a moistened Carpet of shrunken …
Your translucent skin Gasps gently for breath In the Land of the Noonday Sun; A mountainous vista Unexpectedly replaced With Ziploc bags and Moist paper towels As you travel to Transparent incubators To be fed a diet of Crickets, Humidity, And rising temperatures. Beneath a harsh and Artificial sun …
The Snowpack glistens Against a late November sun. Weighed down by the burden Of frigid memories that Will later flow as torrents Into empty reservoirs and Neglected boating lakes. Searching for patterns In this frozen future fabric, We weave potential snowfall Across rocky murals of Pixelated pigments; The coarseness …
Leaky pipelines cannot excuse The vileness of your touch As it seeps malevolently From its ancient, grainy prison; Your eccentric composition Creating chemical fingerprints That dance lightly across the Soft and drifting breeze, Masking your toxic presence To finger innocuous fields Of rice and herded scapegoats With the legacy of …
Illegal logging in community forests, Oil drilling in indigenous territories, Mining concessions in native soils, These have become our warzones. Activists hailed as terrorists, While global agribusiness is Paraded as unchallenged And unchosen liberator. Forever on the right side of progress; Writing its history With cheques, And laws, And body …
Browsing through the foliage You selectively suppress The spindly growths of youth, Maintaining gaps of light Through frequent visitations To clumsily prune each trunkful Of frail and wasteful biomass. Ungainly gardeners of this Fragile, jaded home, Your disturbances reshape Wooded structures and Buried thickets; Shearing lively brushes As you …
Your barren canvas stretches Tightly across forgotten states; Caught between unforgiving waves And starry mountain peaks, Your pulse beats unhurriedly In this hibernation of solitude. Permafrost litters your landscape: Continuous, Discontinuous, Sporadic. Its frozen core A hard border to Fertile soils and Future disturbance. But as the ice begins …