The September Editor's Pick Poet is Sarah Ann Watts
Please feel free to email Sarah at:
wlawrsara@wlawrsara.karoo.co.uk
SPLINTERS OF DESIRE
That you will never feel
cold
as the graves
and silent places
birthed you into light
as the world faded
Miasma
that you hatched from
Choking life
from parched throats
As the seas receded
and the ice burgs flared
Like novas
(they are not novas)
into ashes
You stride like a Colossus
(you are not)
We are the little people you break
the toys you smash
to feed the hunger
you can never sate
Broken now
The stone king is dead
and the shadows gather
around his
empty
tomb
HONESTY IN VULTURES
Spider-like you crawl
seeking prey
(you are not spiders)
Who knows
out of what plague-stricken city
you spawned
Rare meat
bleeding
Is the kind you like best
Where the victims’ screams
fade slowly in the darkness
A lyric lament
you dine on
while the blood that drips
from your strange lips
forms a chorus
to the stone king
Echoes of pain
that endure
beyond imagination
(Do you hear the dead voices when you wake
In the night
The moon shining
on pale flesh
decayed
aeons ago?)
There is an honesty in vultures
that you lack
Shadow creatures
given a little brief power
filled with a sense of
inexorable
purpose
while your hearts swell and break
(Ice can crack the harshest stone
All it takes is time
and a little self-deception.)
They were not meant to be tethered to the earth
with claws of dead things
but to soar into the sky
free
Pinioned to the ground
you try to rise
but fail
in sacrifice
to the stone king
who consumes
spits out the
empty husk of you
to live forsaken
Fall
where everything is
huddled
broken prayers
You feed
(Like vultures—
you are not vultures)
on dreams and aspirations
The last exhalation you take
before your victim dies
(Do you remember
When you were nearly human?)
You heard the dreams
shatter as you broke the window
Shards of glass
entering your hearts
Sarah Ann Watts is a UK writer of speculative fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in Bewildering Stories, The Future Fire, Andromeda Spaceways, Every Day Fiction, Neon, and The Linnet’s Wings.
Find her on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/sarah.a.watts.9