News: published in Outburst Magazine

Outburst Magazine is a recently established online literary zine containing short stories, poetry, photographs and art work by various contributors.

I was fortunate enough to have two poems published in the second issue of the magazine: Red and Window.

The short stories are particularly interesting in this issue of the magazine, and it is a venture well worth keeping an eye on in the future.

Window

The one window that allows stars to watch me sleep,
The mattress, weightless, falls away, making me fall too,
Bottomless, into the trap of being too comfortable.

They wink, candles of the night sky, lulling me to falsity,
Hanging there, unmoving and unwavering to thoughts or wishes,
Actions are impossible in this suspension of all drive.

Lead filled lids crash and grate with every forced re-opening,
With dreams tantalisingly close before I take them away,
Open eyes fixed on those unreachable stars, that unreachable space.

The only time in my life they watch me while I gaze back,
No curtains, no roofs, no street lights, no clouds, no moon, no obstruction,
Just our sights’ lines, meeting, overlapping, crossing and telling.

Telling me to forget their existence, and to just travel the distance.

(I was staying over in a friend's house and he was kind enough to give me a bed - while looking out of the window beside my bed it occurred to me that it was the first time I had ever been able to gaze at the stars while lying down to go to sleep).