top of page
Search

2 poems by Luke Palmer

  • Editor
  • Apr 27, 2022
  • 1 min read

Doomscrolling


Yes today has been the bluntest

cross legged at the kitchen window

the same view pressing on it


the sills are deep with flies ticking

consonants of small forms that

slowed against the glass then


shrunk their cursive rasp

at my fingernails only the fridge

hums now meanwhile the sky


is faultless with swifts I watch

vital parts of myself detach

lumber to the river where


they cease I squeeze greenfly

from the bud of every rose

in all my prosperous beds


until my fingers change colour



Meatspace


Summer the same long day eeking out

commit everything to its little frame

like a lepidopterist take care


don’t smudge the summers wings

or scuzz its furry abdomen

sometimes rain is just a noise a pack


of flies at their articles unpicks itself

until it smithereens in the puddles

a panic of peg dolls their wet round heads gulp


push sand around the house let it build

in the corners ‘til you shake it out

down the gutters no *you’re* raining


and the beach a stuffed mouth at dusk

clouds over it the colour of pulpy corpses

there’s dolphins in the bay maybe a seal


you want to throw a mug against the wall


____________

Luke Palmer's second pamphlet, In all my books my father dies, was released in 2021 by The Red Ceilings Press. He also writes novels for young adults, and Grow (Firefly, 2021) is longlisted for the 2022 Carnegie Medal and Branford Boase Award.

 
 
 

Recent Posts

See All
2 poems by Duncan Chambers 

Rules of the Hunt 1. The Boundaries of the Hunt shall not be limited by Time or Space 2. The Choice of the Quarry shall not be Random,...

 
 
 
2 poems by Phoebe Ambrosini Brown

in vocation / 22 She said writing was like sex in that the goal is to keep doing it. Margery Kempe, speaking her book said He lay before...

 
 
 

Comentarios


bottom of page