and other poems
The Podcast of Rain
The rain is podcasting again.
Latest topics include how to ruin
an argument-stained picnic,
the best way to act as background
music for a break-up, and ten easy
ways to inspire every teenager’s poem.
The recording tries to play, but is constantly
interrupted by thunder beating its kettle
drum chest, lightning baring its fangs,
and the airing cupboard of eccentric relatives
tumbling out: plagues of trout, chickens,
and fibreglass cows, meatballs of hailstones,
blizzards shapeshifting into Arctic foxes,
hurricanes arm wrestling with tornadoes,
and whisker-cheeked ball lightning.
Two minutes of peace, it asks for.
Two minutes to river away the afternoon,
and make you origami into a boat
to flee everything it brings as well as it takes.
Silverfish
Every home is an ocean:
they chew through waters
of unpaid bills, boats
of pizza napkins, burger
box shipwrecks. A letter
heavy with the heartbeat
of your father is an island
soon to be lost in their guts.
Poems give them nightmares:
fish bone anchors. Dead
trees’ squid branches. Wildfires
of foxes. They shiver under skirting
boards; watch for a pen worse
than the grim reaper’s scythe.
Christian Ward
Christian Ward is a UK-based writer who can be recently found in Red Ogre Review, Wild Court, Scapegoat Review, Pink Apple Press, The Selkie, Rappahannock Review, South Florida Poetry Journal and Double Speak.