CHRISTIAN WARD

 

 

Manifesto For Lit Skies

 

The

blackbird

with

a mouth

full of

astronomy

must be

protected

at all

costs

 

Near Leake Street Arches

 

Decay is offering tours

of a nearby road

corkscrewing underground.

CCTV knits while all vehicles

are recorded. Dead buddleia,

fuzzy like Fozzie Bear, stagger

in the breeze. Traffic cones

waltz in the wind. A dumped

scooter is posed like a murder

victim waiting for its glow-up.

Silver beer cans offer themselves

for the magpies. Whatever lies

at the bottom is peeling its heart,

throwing layers that grenade

on impact. A poem for our pleasure.

 

Scholars

 

Scribes of wood pigeons

scrawl the lawn with observations:

the shifting tide of seasons,

the humility of sunlight, song

calls carrying changes in their staccato.

Once, I looked for answers

in the papyrus of your palm.

The ungrown words are sterile

in their landing spots, attract

flies and beetles mistaking it

for the dead.

 

Strawberry Picking

 

Everything my father said

about the place was a lie:

Fields full of jaundiced noses.

Others studded with fungi

like prosthetic witch props.

A few dipped in an unripe

shade of crème de menthe.

I held onto his promise

of sweetness long after he died;

felt it crystallise, ripen with regret.

 

CHRISTIAN WARD

 

CHRISTIAN WARD: Longlisted for the 2023 National Poetry Competition, Christian Ward's poetry has recently appeared in Acumen, Loch Raven Review, Dream Catcher, London Grip, The Shore and The Westchester Review. He was shortlisted for the 2024 Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize, and won the first 2024 London Independent Story Prize for poetry and the 2024 Maria Edgeworth Festival Poetry Competition.