Inspired by Holst’s The Planets From Mercury to Pluto i. It’s his first time falling for a boy. His heart, scherzando, laughs him breathless. Here, he can almost touch the sun. ii. flushed cheeks in spring rain and silver love songs exchanged on women’s lips. a whisper carried on rose petals and curly hair. iii. Indecisive. […]
BBC Proms Poetry Competition 2017
On Wholeness
Inspired by John Adams’ Harmonium It takes longer than a human life for plastic to decompose by opening itself within the old bone structures of previous mammals. Our bodies will gather in smaller pieces, the places light can’t escape. How I once found a monarch butterfly and watched it die; stole its wings. I’m not […]
Scheherazade
Inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade Begin with the lilac frolics in the hem and the pity-silver stranded in her silk night-dress; her thick black hair, coarse between her fingers, running jungle-like, then serene; her eyes little ponds; his pot-bellied fingers; her lips drying out from spinning yarns with her tongue over and over – she’ll sit here […]