The Ofi Press Magazine

Poems by Grant Tarbard (UK)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 48

Ode to My Disability 

I am enamoured with my enclosing,

favourite of an unmade bed,

the white arsenic of my toppling 

free, bound into gravity's stream.

Mend this toxin, capable of being carried 

but unwilling to admit to devastation,

unable to confront my bit lip 

and split knee revealing the patchwork of my matter.

My raspy throat rattles to the whistle 

of an unforgotten first loves name,

this echo of an H-bomb burns me from the inside

out contorting my features, legs in a grimace 

to the soil that used to be underfoot 

until the flames consume me and I become invisible.  

Loneliness is the Machine that Drives this World

My breast is a wood carving of a lark that sings;

loneliness is the machine that drives this world.

I splinter my spray painted vowel shapes

my language is as crude as a stone tool,

a means of escape into hallucinations 

that rampart my Adam's apple,

a door into my throat. In the fuzz 

of my skin is a jigsaw of scars that I'll pack

and bring out as a game on a rainy day

to walk on the yellow grass that’s sealed in a walnut.