The Last Cigarette
Mud’s heavy.
Clings like it don’t want me leavin’.
The yard’s gone to weeds.
Barn leans east,
boards split,
roof rattlin’ in the wind.
Used to be voices here
kids hollerin’ from the porch,
her laugh in the kitchen window.
Now just the pump creakin’,
a dog bark from miles away.
She’s been gone five winters.
Kids scattered.
Nobody writes much.
Mailbox hangs open,
spiderweb inside.
I light my last cigarette.
Smoke sits wrong in my chest.
Halfway down,
I pinch the ember dead,
drop it in the mud.
Tractor stays put.
I walk inside.
The Porridge Disaster
“Away with you, Morag, you’ve spoiled the lot!
You tossed in more salt than the North Sea’s got!”
“Oh hush, Maggie, it wasn’t me!
It was your shaky hand, I could plainly see.”
“You silly old hen, you stirred it wrong,
With a spoon that’s been cracked for far too long!”
“And you, you clart, had the fire too high,
Now it’s stuck to the pan like a fly to a pie!”
They glared, they muttered, the porridge stuck fast,
Till both gave up on breakfast at last.
Morag laughed, Maggie just sighed:
“Next time, hen, we’ll just have fried.”
The Last Dance
they lived in a house
full of moths and mirrors,
talking to shadows
like they’re old friends.
once, they were the Valentina Twins
tap shoes sharp as razors,
feathers in their hair,
hips that knew how to sell a song
to a drunk room full of men
no one could time a slap like Vera
no one could drop a line like Mavis
and make it feel like jazz
so it was time for one last dance
they dug out the costumes
smelling of dust, perfume
and other ghosts
then shuffled and spun,
music playing from a warped old radio
they bowed
deep as their bones allowed
and shone
like rusted stars
that never quite went out
The Old Clown
the old clown
sits in a folding chair
behind the tent,
makeup smeared like regret,
cigarette burning down
between two yellow fingers
that once caught knives
and applause
he’s been kicked by ponies,
pissed on by dwarfs,
drunk with sad acrobats
who smelled like chalk and failure.
he’s slept in trucks,
shivered through Kansas winters
with a broken flask and a busted heater,
telling himself
the next town would be better
he thinks about walking out.
not a grand exit, no spotlight,
no curtain call.
just leave the clown suit
on a chair
and vanish into the dark
like smoke off the end of a bad cigar
Birdman
he came out of the trees
bones bird-brittle,
didn’t walk so much
as rearrange
his shadow
he raised his head
all the broken clocks
in his throat
began to tick
he opened his mouth
everything
he thought he’d known
poured forth
to blacken the sun
The Cat at the Window
Oh splendid,
it’s pouring now
and still I am ignored.
I only asked to be let in seven times,
but no, your show’s on, kettle’s on,
and I, your majestic feline overlord,
am left marinating on the curb
like yesterday’s takeaway.
Do you see this fur?
Sodden! Saturated!
I smell like a wet sock
unwashed for weeks.
Pedestrians step around me,
A pigeon gave me side-eye,
A dog offered me therapy.
You! Inside!
Yes, you with the opposable thumbs
and the dry toast, open the damn door
before I freeze off my whiskers
in this cold, indifferent world.
Scarecrow Sorcerers
Three ran the hushwater path
stalk and straw, bloom and thread
skimming the skin of the trembling fen
as stormlight bruised the reeds
Their limbs whispered brittle verses
riddles sung backward by the wind:
“Skel skel silva morna”
a chant shaped like wings of dusk
Marsh-wrack bent to listen
Blackbirds spiraled like thrown charms
The bog’s breath thickened
as their feet stitched vapour trails in peat
Each call, each rustle, echoed a forgotten name
lost in the hush
the wind left behind
Exodus
the city split open like a cracked tooth
rain slashing down in sheets
a cloudburst thick as fever
choking the neon in a dying pulse
headlights flared like warning shots
an electric storm swallowing its own light
they were running
out of doorways, alleyways
out of bars that smelled of piss and loneliness
past cars locked in traffic jams
past stores with empty shelves
someone pounded on a taxi window
pleading to be let in
the driver stared straight ahead
fingers tight on the wheel
somewhere, a siren cried a warning
but still they ran
with nowhere left to go
An Alphabet of Longing
they move like trapped birds
behind the window’s breath
two figures, arms slicing air
steam thick as winter lungs
one mouths a word
a plea
a hunger
the other cries out
fingers etching frantic shapes
an alphabet of longing
they keep moving
two dark hieroglyphs
palms splayed against glass
as if they could press through
to the side where touch means freedom
The Poet and the Dog
inside the theatre, a single bulb
swaying like a bored hypnotist
casts its light on the stage
a crumpled page in her fist
she raises it like a preacher
and begins to speak
“when the door clicks shut,
it is a guillotine of silence.”
her voice scrapes the rafters,
spits into the dark,
but it is not just her voice
beside her, ribs sharp as sorrow,
a dog
a cracked-moon mutt with eyes
that know every locked door
throws his head back and howls
a duet for the forgotten,
for every shadow
that waited at the gate
but was never met
the howl folds into words,
the words become the howl
the walls close in
and the night cries out
in loneliness
Freedom
The rain came down in thick, silver ropes, drumming against the sodden earth, pooling in the uneven ground of the moor. The wind howled through the heather, tangling in her wild hair, whipping it across her face. But she didn’t stop to push it back. She simply ran.
Bare feet pounded the mud, water splashing up her legs, cold seeping through the thin fabric of her dress. It clung to her like a second skin, but she barely felt it. She was beyond cold now, beyond exhaustion.
Her breath came in sharp gasps, misting in the damp air. The moor stretched out endlessly before her, a world of shifting fog and wind-torn grass, the horizon swallowed in grey. Behind her, the house was only a memory, a dark thing receding into the storm.
The sky rumbled, the moor stretching on, endless. She didn’t know where she was going. She only knew she was free.
The Quest
now..
break each line
scatter the letters like startled birds
let syntax stumble
and leap from the page
whisper an alphabet made of wind
sing the unsingable
let language taste like mangoes
and rain
forget the map
walk off its edges
name everything anew
become the words
that haven’t yet been spoken
Umbrella
It’s a dead giveaway for an invisible man to carry an umbrella
a slick black arc against an empty sky,
shadow without form, proof of presence
where absence should reign.
Rain falls through him, pooling on pavement,
his footprints ghosting for a moment,
then washing away, unclaimed.
No one sees the hands that grip the curved handle,
no one hears the sigh beneath the storm.
He could be anyone
a man who refuses to be forgotten,
a whisper of laughter lost in the wind,
a secret standing in the crowd.
Yet still, the umbrella gives him away,
a stubborn silhouette
against the drowning world.
Martin Sercombe 