Poetry, 2022
The birds, they're sleeping
This immersive free verse poem aims to capture the transformative sensation of walking through The London Open 2022, exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery. It draws parallels between floating through a dream or veering into a nightmare, where material reality, experience, and memory start to blur. The structure creates a distinct visual pathway across the page, subtly guiding readers to artworks, themes, phrases, and sentiments featured at the exhibition. The piece is intended to be familiar and accessible regardless of whether you saw the show. It also served as my entry for their inaugural Young Writer in Residence open call, for which I was a runner-up.
The birds, they're sleeping
and so am I
and I
entered through doors that swung back
on themselves from behind the
man who did not think to
hold them.
Catching up, I overhead
what is expected of me, here
picked up a leaflet and said
nothing at all.
Starting again, I smiled to the clerk
nodded and did not look
ungrateful
through the second doors, this time
careful on my part to fall behind.
Vibrant monstrosity confronted me, then
and I could taste what had once
churned in my stomach.
Meeting my gaze
upon the ground
stood a bright, odd pair of shoes
wearing hats, like people do
of knitted lambswool
and a skull
– one skull, one head, one
looking without eyes
too many eyes
or, hands where eyes should be
and I scream
scream without screaming
scream surrounded
scream alone
until I see another mind
until it cries
in a cascade of primary tears
bleeding down and bleeding out
looking at me, through me
– I cannot help
chewing nails and crossing limbs
as a small rock strikes again
gently,
deliberately,
repeatedly wearing away
the skull and its integrity
just enough until
it was too much until
it shatters
– I move on
greeted first by moonlight
and candlelight
and drones
of whispers, hums and echoes
filling narrow corridors.
A silhouette hangs, swaying
behind a staggered X
cut with clanging clockwork
cogs, cold and blue as
grief.
Families like ours look out
from open, looping windows
to stony views of statue limbs
nailed to walls next door
– hard to touch, they’re hard to clean
where I escape
till I reside
inside a blackness without night
breathing in the quiet
safe and soon could
stay forever.
There is music from behind
the strings,
steps towards forever
watching someone
not unlike me
pause by blurred horizons.
It is magic
calm, uneasy
rolling like low tide.
I think this is my favourite bench,
curious and particular…
I lose time till there is change
and I am joined by someone new
who is less serene,
more hurried than myself.
I lay down with churning jingles
and doze until I’m shot
by a man in green who
danced like ghosts
tumbling through barred windows.
Can’t you see
the man on fire,
see the boy who does not burn?
Hear the sound of sighs
resounding
beating mallet to a drum?
Voices call here without speaking, Ma
Listen, they dissolve
and it continues
it continues
and i -