I know who he is but do not know him by Gareth Culshaw

-
I watch him walk in the fag ash wind.
He smiles with his eyebrows at a neighbour,
then talks with a brie tongue.
He has a woodpecker stance
holds his hands in his pockets to keep
them safe from the fruit machines in pubs.
He once had a wife and two kids but lost them
in a game of poker. I know he drives
a bin wagon each morning before the school
gates open. In the morning I hear him cough out
toothpaste in the garden, then watch him clean
his ears with the beak of a sparrow he catches
in a net. He rolls a newspaper on the garden wall,
paints a cigarette between his lips, swigs a can of cola.
His burp is a tenon saw on wood.
He taps the neighbour on the shoulder and walks
away with plumb bob straightness.

---

Gareth lives in Wales. He has two collections by FutureCycle called The Miner & A Bard's View. He has been Nominated for Best of the Net and won his first poetry competition at the RS Thomas Festival 2019. More information on Gareth and his work can be found here: gcwculshaw.moonfruit.com 

Comments

Post a comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grief Bucket by Claire Walker

-
After the administration was complete – the registering, the funeral bill - they handed me a small metal container.
This, they told me, in their clinical-yet-tender way, was a Grief Bucket, Standard Issue. They said I might find it useful from now on, and please could I sign to confirm I understood.
At home, I placed the bucket in the middle of the living room floor, carefully removed its cellophane wrap and stared at it for days.
Sometime later, I found myself on the sofa, head between my knees, and the bucket proved useful for catching drops; catching the sad plop of grief as it lived up to its name.
Friends showed mixed reactions. Some had no time for buckets, were too concerned with their unfair jobs and sore feet to acknowledge this recently acquired possession. Even in its shiny newness. Even in its glare-in-the-winter-sun-ness.
Some were more attentive. One reached into a kitchen cupboard, brought her bucket - careworn and rusting - down and set it next to mine. Sh…
Read more

Things They Don't Tell You by Barbara O'Donnell

-
That the moment the words terminal diagnosis leave the doctor’s mouth, the grieving starts. Speaking a foreign language to cover for
the fact that there is nothing they can do. That the family will fight, even as they know the treatment plan is the best medicine available.
That his swallowing reflex will depart before him, making you figure out ways to give him the only thing he begs for, cold juice or whiskey.
That you’ll beg the pharmacist to tell you, which is the better mouthwash to use. As if it would make a difference.
That you’ll spend those last days, not telling stories or saying how much you love each other. But that he’ll repeatedly throw you out of the room.
Make you wonder again, whether to contradict the doctor’s orders; to give him what he wants. But which will also hasten his demise.
So that you can try to eke out the minutes, that the clock tells you are passing, but which seem to stand still inside the close, bare room, which seems to be his wish. T…
Read more

Letters never sent by Beth O'Brien

-
I write you letters, like these ones here. 

I focus on my handwriting  so I don’t over-think the words  I’m never going to show you. 
I burn a stamp, an envelope, and imagine  flames dancing from inside a postbox, pretending I can smell the ink melting.  Sometimes, I think that’s the only way forward and I wonder if red becomes redder if you burn it? 
Every letter I write is a reminder of why  they are letters never sent.  Every letter I never send is a reminder of why  I write you words, like these ones here.
---
Beth O’Brien is a third year English Literature student at the University of Birmingham. She has had work published with Foxglove Journal, Nine Muses Poetry, and BellaOnline Literary Review. She is a reviewer for Mad Hatter Reviews and Riggwelter Press, and has written articles for sheswanderful.comand the Graduate Recruitment Bureau blog. 
Read more