Hyacinthoides
this morning I stalked the bluebells
for the last time
they dove under my boots
there in the woods
where smalt hangs itself
from young verdant necks
bent in unanimous weep
toward the toothless
chew of earth
there’s chaos in those hues
caught between rain
and promised rot
like the cobalt blades
of panicked light
slicing the air that night-
the policemen
dropped their heads
as they walked past me
whispered that the driver
was trying to take his own life
newspapers declared he was
a man with a grudge
of previous good character
aren’t all rapists so?
island gossip ferments
in the summer heat
as context moulds in my mouth
and rumour has its pulse
of percussive syllables
striking the pavement
like a downed power line
their words fell from every bell
flicked from curling tongues
to dust my skin as pollen
or mother’s mad yellow kitchen
her electric prayer for joy
made buttercup caustics
no, just buttercup
darling
advice finally came on a foam of sap
onion-drenched
and stinging
stay
and be razed
brightly
so I left my home
to sway at the bow of a ferry
safe in the blue of distance
Brad Beau Cohen (he/him/they/them) has recently graduated from his Master’s degree at University of Glasgow. His poetry has been published worldwide by fourteen poems, American literary journal Versification Zine, anthologised twice by Fincham Press, and exhibited in The Hilbert Raum and SomosArt House. Some of his poems have been adapted into film by Sian Williams and were catalogued at the BFI Flare LGBT Film Festival, screened at FRINGE queer film festival, Leeds Queer Film Festival, FEST and shortlisted for ShanghaiPRIDE Film Festival. Cohen is a queer, working class writer from Guernsey based in London. Sugar Water is Cohen’s debut poetry pamphlet. His social handles on Instagram and Twitter @bradbeaucohen.
