CHRISTIAN WARD

 

A redshift of foxes

 

Almost running over a fox cub

with black holes in its eyes

loosens something in your head,

and you start seeing the night sky

everywhere: spiral galaxies

of sausages at the Italian grill,

a bedspread of the Milky Way

hypnotising you to sleep,

every chemtrail another shooting

star, the red giant of blood orange

sorbet, and the craquelure of a lunar

surface on the morning's boiled egg.

This is the universe's trick:

to make you obsessed with it

until everything starts to pull away,

with not even gravity able to solve

the resulting wound bright like redshift,

a song of summer.

 

Porcupine

 

Homesick for a life you never lived

makes you dizzy like a wasp in cider;

 

content to foxtrot with the sunshine

making honey of everything it touches

 

while displaying your quills. O porcupine,

can't you see I am no walking oven?

 

The unbaked day is proofed, but carries

the pock marks and blemishes of an eggshell’s

 

lunar map. A hint of powder blush, clichéd blue,

masks the cold gnawing at the hours.

 

Whatever your quiver is aiming for

no longer blares its heat, is settled like the sun

snug in its spirit level bubble.

 

Losing My Religion

On The Grand Union Canal

 

With apologies to William Carlos Williams

 

Absolutely nothing

relies on a canal

 

the colour of matcha,

a supermarket trolley

 

peeking its head out

of the water like Nessie,

 

or the prophylactic

of a thrown out

 

Sainsbury's bag.

Sorry, Will.

 

My Balconies

 

Almost every balcony was stockpiled

with enough rain to outdo Noah.

One balcony choked on trains

delivering grief. The Swiss chard

made its own grave that year.

Another overlooked chessboard

apartment blocks waiting

for a checkmate. The cat played

stuntman while the flowers

drowned themselves out of anxiety.

The pre-war estate delivered

only the fallout of a breaking marriage.

Nothing grew but stones. Optimistic

as always, I'm confident the marigolds

in my latest balcony will stay the course.

Look how they've resisted the rain.

Arm wrestled away gales. Give them

a few years and the sun will be at

their beck and call.

 

Bluebells

 

The woods clutch them

like overprotective parents

while Peter Pan clouds

cling to the treetops.

Hues of blue. Spring's cliché.

The postcard hurries along.

 

CHRISTIAN WARD

 

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