The Agonist Journal

Hungry

Potatoes also have eyes
but we are so greedy
                                         scattering
ripe
                fruit
succulent
                                                         jostling
strange things will happen here

 

The Book of Longing

the shrouded taint of shadow memories
               saturated whispers
her beetle-green semi-iridescence
blackening like a discarded banana-skin
               You only get one chance
               You were never really here

I should have known
so and now I must find the ruined place framing
haunting prose hunting
               spice and sweets
splicing the muscular if

residual swerve of honeyed grief
curved and carved seething cinnamon-vanilla
flakes of memory chipping away and chipping away
like wood shavings
pining

the sense of something unfinished
               needling
tick tock
tick tock

from where I stand it’s clear to me
moonbone severance
the purplepink greyblacks

honouring the quivering signature
of your dark edged mantra
waiting and wanting

just a minute
    the cling
    the scrape
last stop—eternity

 

Broken

listen


I still crave it every day but it’s killing me

              the silent half-formed slipslide

              this poisoned vine

              these whisper-bone fragments


              cascade

              swell

              drowning incandescent fortnights

but the silksigh room is still empty


              like seeing a ghost.
                                                                     Almost.