SELECTED POETRY

by
Christian Ward

I THOUGHT I SAW A SPANISH SUNRISE ONCE

A slumbering dog
of a morning watches
the sky empty a coat

of rain. Wary of siesta,
it retreats behind
curtains of mountain;

eager for the blackboard
of night, the sharpening
of dreams.

� Christian Ward

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SLIPPAGE

I was not the first to try
and find the source
of her slippage of heat.
Others had fumbled

through her body lit up
like a field of lighthouses,
crouching past a tiger
inked on her left thigh,

avoiding the topiary
between her legs. Nobody
guessed it was her eyes:
a pair of leaking vents
colouring the sky infra-red
with each drop of lost desire.

� Christian Ward

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THINGS LEARNT FROM SEAS

The sea�s slipped out
of its straitjacket. Buoys
are the first to go, knocked
back like tequila down

a sodium throat. Trawlers
buckle, their hips trashing
against the horsepower
of an engine high on gravity.

Strutting its victory dance
around, it never notices
the injection shoved in its arm
by a lighthouse�s I-beam.

Shutting down, it throws up
tonight�s haul from a frothing
mouth. Lovers� names inked
on a beach are never there,

always kept in the back of
its throat; antiseptic for past
mistakes.

� Christian Ward

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BEFORE THE ABORTION

Thinking about the dead crow
on the road out of Chichester
made her blood turn black,

her bones flake and worms
prep the turf for whatever bile
she would throw up. I swear

I heard feathers rustle when I
slept that night, followed by
the cracking of eggs and a sharp
electric cry.

� Christian Ward

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STRUGGLE

The nature of struggle
was visible in the jar of rain
gathered for his school project:

a lopped off fly�s head bobbing
on the surface. Three mayflies
that had been executed at dawn.

And at the bottom, his mother�s
silent voice; her vowels and syllables
still wrestling in his father�s throat.

� Christian Ward

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SNATCHED

The girl appeared suddenly,
as if she had stepped out
of a photograph, stopping
to smile at some random
passenger on the buses� top
deck. And then, after she
had smiled, scurried back
to her bank of darkness;
eager to sift through her takings
and forget about the images
she had planted in our heads,
slowly digesting like an isotope.

� Christian Ward

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