I break my hard shell shield from sharp cold,
find soft shoots and grass to eat in the warm.
As I grow out my young selves into old
I eat tougher stems, and my wings take form.

My stomach hears sounds. droplets from above
knock you off of a stem, drown you in their fall.
My large back legs move me up into rough
air which thunders inside, I land and call

rub leg against wing, she arrives, is bigger
than I. I climb her. Droplets break a wing,
knock her sideways so I topple, shiver
onto sodden soil, float into dying.

Here I look into world as it passes.
Drown in this flow as it flutters, flashes.

Selected byJordan Trethewey
Image credit:Wolfgang Hasselmann

Paul Brookes is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. First play performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull.  His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews, book reviews and  challenges. Had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and, videos of his Self Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions. Most recent is a poetry collaboration with artworker Jane Cornwell: "Wonderland in Alice, plus other ways of seeing", (JCStudio Press, 2021) , sonnet collections: "As Folktaleteller",( ImpSpired, 2022), forthcoming "These Random Acts of Wildness, (Glass Head Press, 2022)

 

Web sites:

https://thewombwellrainbow.wordpress.com/

medium.com/@PaulDragonwolf1

Twitter: @PaulDragonwolf1