Geology by Gareth Culshaw

Grasshoppers spin their wheel spokes

as they hide in the ferns.

A stonechat taps pebbles under

gorse. The sea threatens to pull

the land from under our feet. Paths

made by a thousand soles.

Our new walk is more natural than back home

when shopping centres, supermarkets

and car parks become our earth.

Sheep are scattered rice down below,

and the seagulls become knee height.

We have kept going with our geology

scarred by this thing called life.

Gareth Culshaw lives in Wales. He had his first collection out by Futurecycle, called The Miner in 2018. His second is in 2020 called Shadows of Tryfan. He is a current post-graduate at Manchester MET. 

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. 

Rubecula by Gareth Culshaw

You watch not far away

Standing chest first.

You wait as if for a bus, 

mind attached to the soil, 

heaved up skin of earth, 

a million years decay. 

I see death in your eyes,

deep afterlife. I dig and dig,

until a hole is big enough. 

Letting you leave this world behind. 

Once you are placed inside, 

your eyes look up.

I have no words, just a spade 

to tilt things back in.

Your leaving is the last thing I need.

Then when I turn my back 

you are there like a homeless 

man in a bin. 

Scratching for the tail end 

of the sinking worm. 

Guardian of the woods and me. 






Gareth Culshaw lives in Wales. He is an aspiring writer who hopes one day to achieve something special with the pen.

The Last House by Gareth Culshaw

The last house just before the turn

before the pillar trees. 

Collects the first darkness, loses the 

daylight before anyone else. 

Its roof sinks into the wood in the evening

front gate closes before my own.

Before the turn into the unknown

it stands broad, but then the introduced black

shadows cloak the walls. The last house,

a step away from the wood, that creeps

up slowly every year. Dropped seeds, 

running weeds, suffocating ivy

are all wrapping up its identity. 

I see the last house on the canopy line

looking retired and weather worn.

Relieved I don't live inside.

Gareth Culshaw lives in N Wales, he loves the outdoors and hopes to achieve something special with the pen.

The Wood Eats Things You Know by Gareth Culshaw

It takes the daylight and sends it to the 

stars above. It eats birds too, coughed

up feathers lie on the edge of things.

Regurgitated meals. Clean white bones

lie like spare car parts. Snowdrops come and go.

Bluebells are rounded up like sheep

then taken in one night. Daffodils

vanish one by one, gulped down by 

something unseen, unknown. 

The wood eats things you know.

I think it's best not to linger there too long

or you may be taken too.

Gareth Culshaw is an aspiring writer who hopes one day to achieve something special with the pen.