Two Poems by David Alec Knight

 

Iguana Flu In Fever Shades


A taxi pulls into the parking lot
and it loses definition as the yellow
leaks on the road in strange shapes
of stretching rain swell.
Twilight fever shade is long
and lengthening, each limb of dark
a tendril ever to be inching
in slither to grasp.

Something rises from
where nothing was seen
to writhe in silent stretch
through its growth.
A hammer on anvil loud spark,
a flash of silent lightning in the faint
and the window stretches
on the floor.

Buildings are weather stained, look
as if no life resides within -- sweat
from tormented nerves turns sticky
like blood drying inconveniently fast.
My mind feels like bowl fruit rotting
in a desolation row room, a still life
posed next to a window sealed shut
and never shuttered.

The shower turns to splinters,
a soft feeding of fear fills the strain
of the wear down, and I am still
in the moment.
I lean like a burdened cross
as rare moths suffocate in my  gut.
Car lights shine like summer shores,
and blind like new streetlights.

Flesh feels cracked and pocked
as disused streets casting shadows
of broken asphalt rising; skin peels
as if dive motel wallpaper.
Sacral smiles are safe in this dark:
I struggle for grace in squalor feelings
as eyes meet cracked reflection
in storm shards sliding.

Fire flashes of red and orange at war
burn eyes dry, until fire dies inside
and the torpid shivers within
forecast the tremoring.
I am burned by tongue of raw fire,
cut by serrated, poison painted claws
to be convicted by indifferent eyes,
afflicted with iguana flu.

Pale Goth Beauty Under Black Light


I miss you awkwardly,
knowing we will never
meet up again, never
to blush to think, never
to laugh over and talk
about youthful days since
fumbling passions faded.

Listening
to old Skinny Puppy, I think
of you and the balustrade
of blue, that gyred your pupils.
Last night, it was
Sique Sique Sputnik -- the same.
And the night before that,
The Jesus And Mary Chain.

Everything that casts light now
shines as did your laughing eyes.

David Alec Knight grew up in Chatham, Ontario, Canada.

He includes his middle name in his pen name as a means of disambiguation, his first and last name being fairly common. It is in response to being ignorantly perceived as a pretension by others that he wrote  the poem "Disambiguation".

In 2021, David was recipient of The Ted Plantos Memorial Award for Poetry. His first book of poetry, The Heart Is A Hollow Organ, soon followed. His second book of poetry, LEPER MOSH, was published by Cajun Mutt Press in 2022. It featured his artwork on the cover. Cajun Mutt Press would also feature a portfolio of his artwork online, as well as publishing his first full color comic story online, WRATH: The Masks We Wear.

Recent poems have appeared in Verse Afire, Cajun Mutt Press Featured Poet, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Medusa's Kitchen. Anthology appearances include By The Wishing Tree, Poets For Ukraine Volume 1, Love Lies Bleeding, Phantom Parade, and The Cajun Mutt Press Halloween Anthology Zine 2022.

David sees dark and light around him in equal measure and that is reflected in his poetry, whether exploring working class themes, neurodivergence, addiction, urban living, our conflict with Nature, and the effects all these things have on relationships.

David works full-time in Long Term Care.