Two poems from the terrible (Nine Arches Press)
feeding the bed
we haggle & haul each piece of furniture
into the house throwing the songs
from our past into the fire they crack
like potassium at the foot of the bed
with the fake lashes & intimacies
drink dragged from our bodies
those who looked at us like
misplaced love-letters strewn
on the sodden road how
their faces ruined in shadow
each night was a premiere
the soft applause of skin
hitting skin & whatever remains
from this wreckage burns a little
brighter whatever remains is us
streetlamps
for decades they’ve unfurled like trees
through the tachycardic heart
of the suburbs heavy with beer
I’ve fallen under their constellations
of polished glass thrown over
my catalogue of failures mute
they never judge their soft glare
shatters over a thousand drug deals
husbands meeting women whose dreams
they’ll plunder leaving their scrapped hearts
in the road they hold our terrible lives
tight & with all the darkness
we bring they breathe their light
Daniel Sluman was named one of Huffington Post‘s Five British Poets to Watch in 2015. He has previously held editorial roles at Dead Ink, Iota, and the award-winning disability anthology FTW: Poets against Atos. He has published two collections with Nine Arches Press, Absence has a weight of its own (2012) and the terrible (2015) available here.
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