The Grammarian
The logo on his bag says
Nantucket Historical Society, 2002
but his face shows no passing
of time; as if he just left a mould
and sits carrying out left behind
instructions; circling the commas
scheduled for execution, sparing
a dash here, a parentheses there,
cleaning up the page like the way
he has organised his life. His glasses,
suit and umbrella follow subject, object,
verb. There are no adjectives
caught in his reflection. The world
is not a mosaic of memories, colour
and experiences but subjects, objects
and verbs, watching life only to correct it.
Forthcoming publication in Word Riot
This Begins
in places with names that are hard
to pronounce or you only see on TV,
where a chili coloured sky watches
mosquitoes die and fuck, and volcanoes
roar like forbidden gods. Memories are traded
in empty bars for the faces of dead presidents,
where the fuzzy TV always offers a eulogy
for the unspoken dead. They are packed away
in crates, exported to places only seen in
picture
books and spoken only in myth. The newly arrived
numbers speak in code, and no one, not even the
calling
of a mothers voice, can decode.
Christian Ward is a
second year English & Creative Writing student
at Chichester University in England, UK. His
interests include, reading, writing and watching
films. Some of his poems have appeared in
anthologies. |
