"this is sixth form poetry, not Keats or Yeats"
Struggling beneath the weight of accumulation you buckle in the rains; a surplus of backwash baptising you with the filthy discharge of a thousand vanquished drains. Every street and boulevard fades beneath the waves; thoroughfares gasp for breath, the city’s arteries washed clean until they lead to shallow graves. Inundated …
Your tarnished skin crinkles in the breeze, an ancient husk that juts from the Earth like a withered question mark; interrogating the exuberance that stirs you from your slumber. We crouch, childlike, beneath your broken boughs, callow limbs pawing at flesh As we bore incrementally through your sunken past; …
Smothered beneath a sombre blanket of white lines and greying skies, eyes desensitised to your jaded complexion as our lives play out in stilted monochrome. Suffocating outside the sureness of your emerald embrace, we wilt in the heat, our voices muffled by the deafening absence of your hushed serenity. Shuffling …
As chimney stacks spew forth our tainted offerings of industrial excrement, dilapidated ventilators strain to suck poison from the saturated veins of concrete obelisks; their glass facades opaque to the inevitability of our subsidence. Inside these effigies of excess numbered commodities sift spreadsheets like Sisyphus, smiles met with nodding …
Baptised in artificial waters, connective tissues rejoice in pre-set harmony; their purpose reborn as receptive intercessors that ache to vicariously denounce the darkness. Transplanted behind shaded spots of vacant eyes the hazy light seeps through, its familiar brilliance skirting over resettled skin stretched taught as a drum; vibrating with …
Floating between distant horizons, you dance upon a fraying thread; turning somersaults as butterflies threaten to break free from the fragile anchor beneath your flailing feet. Muscles weaken with your inaction, as brittle bones lose their inhibitions; gliding towards an unseen surface that shimmers forever out of reach against …
Creating environments in which Cookie cutting is placed On precarious pedestals As the peak of workplace Productivity – Whilst new moulds are Shattered into a million Pieces before they can Travel from neural pathways To production lines – Is an extremely effective Approach to promoting Intolerance, Frustration, And stagnation, In …
In sweltering swamps, you seethe And sweat. Shedding layers to Acclimatise to the rising heat, Learning to bask in the warmth Of its embrace as you spread Invasive tendrils to test the Boundaries of your habitat. Your colonies have not entered Our consciousness. Hiding behind the certainty of …
This poem is inspired by recent research, which has found that substituting refined carbohydrates with fresh avocados can significantly suppress hunger in overweight and obese adults. When it comes to managing appetite, there is clearly no ‘one size fits all’ solution. However, understanding the relationship between food and different populations …
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; But how would it taste? Salty, Sour, Bitter, Sweet, That other one, the name For which I always forget Until it is on the tip of my tongue: Umami. A savoury taste …