Here’s a verse by a poet who’s quite new to me – Felix Dennis – who I learned about because he’s doing a nationwide tour this autumn to celebrate the publication of a new book and a flyer for it came in the post this morning. I only read it because it wasn’t a bill, but it seems he’s quite a colourful character, and I might go along when he visits Cardiff (on 29th September, at the Glee Club in Cardiff Bay). Anyway, I had a shufti at his website and found a poem on it called In the Dark, so obviously I just had to post it here! Enjoy!
I knuckle an eye with my fist—
Fragments of non-existent light
Erupt where they cannot exist,
Blinding my non-existent sight.
We huddle by day in our joys,
Swaddled in rags of silk and hope
Like toddlers at play with toys:
By night, we twist all silk to rope
To tether the tiger, Desire,
And cradle demons, lest they wake
And set the lakes of Guilt afire,
As the walls of our dreaming shake.
The candle has guttered and died.
Here in the dark— within my mind
My terrors and tigers collide:
And all have eyes, but I am blind.
In the Dark 