Two Poems by Eddie Heaton

 

one lost 

 

amputated years that leak into our world 

defining mortal loss will fail and fade away  

before the shock of one wild evening’s  

give and take and the white man’s loot  

and patient-friendly straps on a space- 

like surface oblivion therefore soft and  

somehow godforsaken you expect the  

spectral slide and pay your dues and  

shift your shape in splendid isolation  

you decry among the watch fires eye  

the sick and soon-to-be-infected blow  

along the pain-laced days upon a tide  

of fading dreamscapes thrice you see   

the granite cross and images of fleshy  

men playing buzzword bingo with  

women who they barely know but  

think they own and self-awareness  

finally arrives with one eye swollen  

shut foreseeing nuclear winter neatly  

with a trembling pose on a riverfront  

of long abandoned contraband through  

a wondering silence and the half-seen 

shapes and innovations that turn your  

breakdown into carnage – one inherent  

contradiction of the crisis that is in and  

of itself – before you learned to read or  

write you knew to differentiate between  

hallucinations and their source and  

spirit from the decomposing flesh that  

patiently awaits us all

 

 

virtual non-reality 

 

symbols that for many years  

have strengthened both the  

system and its impact on our  

friends now seem to stretch  

away before the keyboard  

cool transmitted on ahead in  

part to contradict the stillness  

left behind you even in the  

dark with thick hot smells in  

the back-spaced arms of a long  

dead tree and a bleeding man  

called thrift one crypto token  

for the sage with his sense of  

things while the river stank  

and the backdrop was  

embedded with his signs  

while lost souls sighing started  

wars and shadows beat and the  

future doesn’t make much sense  

and redemption was asleep  

inside and soundless and with  

every other thing turned down  

he’s left his breakfast mother  

said police turned up from time  

to time confused enchantment  

rolled out flat was lost its golden  

ratios denied it crashed into the  

metaverse one scolded evening  

on a track of black illicit flows  

you heard that cry again and  

cracked

Eddie Heaton studied innovative and experimental poetry under the tutelage of post-modern poet and educator Keith Jebb, achieving a first-class honours degree. 

He also won the 2021 Carcanet Award for Creative Writing