Two Poems by Gareth Culshaw

The Incinerator Mirror

Today is burning day.

The incinerator will lift

its hat for cardboard, paper,

letters, newspapers and magazines.

Sometimes political leaflets

will be pushed in via the spout.

The smoke bellows then drinks

itself to a thinness only smoke

can explain. Near white exhaust before

limestone, then pigeon grey.

A breeze will pat it either way

as it doesn’t want any straightness

to come out of it. Ash builds up

at the bottom, a month’s worth

of pointless knees bends, dry oven

food and wasted words. The bin

changes complexion as the flames

go by. The steel bin becomes a mirror

and the time wasted on the unremarkable

ages my skin like sea salt on brinks of land.

Timeline

It’s my time now, picking up,

wiping clean, mopping yesterday.

Opening out, locking in

bringing the sun to the door

as and when. They sit 

watching the photo albums

fall from their minds. Voices

been and gone, their lives

falling back down their throat

into a pit of darkness that they

are trying to stay away from. 

It’s my time now, picking up

the dead skin that has built

and hid in the corners of settees

thickened on window sills

greyed the in between on remote 

control buttons. Clouded the light 

bulbs that hang and sit. 

It’s my time now, picking up

the timeline they have seeded

and I ready myself to walk alone, 

until the next time. 

Gareth Culshaw lives in Wales. He has his first collection by futurecycle in 2018.