Christian Ward

Poetry

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Things Tomás de Torquemada Might Censor If Still Alive

 

#999567 Hubba Bubba Strawberry Watermelon Gum

#999568 BTS #999569 Troll Dolls #999570 Any film

starring Ryan Gosling #999571 Bowerbirds (see note

below) 

 

The bowers are caves to the underworld 

The avenue bower is an Aphrodite maiden

laid out to attract temptations

The fruits gathered in such bowers are jewels

brought from some devil's hands

The paths are laid down with bones, Barbie 

heads, biros, pebbles, sweetmeats, bottle caps

and other instruments of Hellish invention

The dance the male bowerbird performs after

said construction is finished is one transcending

pure and holy boundaries 

The bowerbird might build devilish bowers from our 

dreams and inspire others to DO THE SAME 

 

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Character Assassination For Beginners 

 

1.    Do not kick the door down, unscrew it quietly. 

2.    Pour mud into your victim's soup 

            to watch them publicly choke.

3.    Dissect their private body of data

            like a skilled anatomist. 

4.    Clog Google's arteries until it palpitates 

            through every phone, tablet and PC. 

5.    Give backhanders to common pests 

            to spread disinformation quicker than GCHQ. 

6.    Hide in red-breasted homes 

            and watch a million curtains twitch

            at the BBC news at Six. Never fly. 

7.    Always forget the reason for doing all this. 

            Dismiss the stranger's voice in your breath as a prank.

 

The Monsters

 

The full moon night-light

isn't enough to keep the rain

attacking your bedroom window 

like an overactive vampire. 

You'd welcome it, too, 

were it not for the Frankenstein

father keeping you inside - 

the lock on your door tighter

than the mummy's bandages. 

Perhaps if your mother

might werewolf some courage, 

she might talk some sense 

into a man with a crew-cut

like a crop circle, who spends

hours in the bath like a creature 

from the deep and is frozen

at the sight of the fridge light

like a cow caught in a UFO's tractor 

beam. Every day is the same

and what bursts out of your chest 

isn't a wannabe xenomorph, 

but the love for your father - 

a Halloween costume falling

apart at the seams 

that no-one can ever repair. 

 

Leech 

 

I'm a syringe that pulls 

until you're paler than the dead;

a hanger-on, a groupie for blood

banks, vampire bats and man-eater 

sharks. I'm the reflection lost 

in Instagram's infinite scroll;

in every heart, emoji and tag. 

Never beg for mercy with a leech - 

I have a control room for 32 brains; 

can think of more ways to hurt 

than childhood. Always look 

carefully in water: five eyes 

and 300 teeth are enough to turn 

puddles into a copper moon. I'll fill 

my pail and cattle you until I'm done. 

The city is just another pasture, 

your dreams a bell to let me know

where you always are. 

 

Brown rat

Rattus norvegicus 

 

Words are landmines

waiting to be stepped on. 

I've avoided a fair share 

by delicately avoid chewing 

newspapers frayed like dried 

sunflowers, nerves of telephone 

wires that might spill drama

bloody and rowdy as the night. 

Poems make me numb. I shudder 

over a lover splitting himself 

like an apple over a heartbreak, 

tsunamis of desire in the long drought, 

the city's thumbprint carried 

on an owl's wing. Though 

the cholesterol of my species' 

reproduction reduces cities 

to disease, we can be cut down 

by verse, the echoes of words 

spiralling into our skulls like a sky's 

closing shutter. Our children are ammo

against all you die for. 

 

Christian Ward is a UK based writer who can be currently found in Wild Greens, Cold Moon Review, Discretionary Love and Chantarelle's Notebook. Future poems will be appearing in Dreich, Spry and Uppagus. Bienvenue au Danse, Christian.

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