Five Poems by Kevin James Phillips

 

Nibs 

This is not  

a poem 

nor a story or a book 

merely letters 

jumbled tossed  

confetti stargaze 

to sprinkle their fall. 

Isn’t that life? 

 

Where did la lengua fall form from?

Alpha omega 

first and last 

who sounds the form  

to tongue the cursed  

sacred written word? 

 

Etymology eschatology

Egypyptology symbolically hieroglyphically  

Mayan plus Sanskrit 

have flowed 

flown aghast a blast  

of source to 

Cymric Cyrillic Gaeilge   

dammed bard Ogham damned barred   

freshly reeked metaphors 

form neurological pathways  

fed on Cuchulainn 

Culhwch ac Olwen 

distant memories 

seep sure symbols 

verbal shores 

sweat nuanced tongues 

palettes and cores 

 

tides torrents 

causeways blockages 

burst banks 

Nile Memphis style 

avalanching snowfall 

lava 

treacling 

pulsating brain 

in tributaried flow  

to blood pink  

lurking  

salmoned source 

upstream conscious unknown well 

well overdrawn instinctual glot to  

what? 

 

Propped mutating words 

evaluate shadow banks 

putrefied shallow nets  

fledgling nests 

precipiced over and  

over dangling  

still 

 

no this is not a poem 

nor a story or a book 

merely jumbled tossed  

wondrous  

stargaze  

flamed letters onto lips 

scrambling confetti 

scrabbling to floor   

ruptured dishevelled  

punctuation shorn 

 

letters lonesome 

as a poem 

all alone

 

…churning

  

earth keeps  

cycling birth 

accordion Hindu philosophy; 

Brahman Vishnu Shiva, 

lords of cosmic dance 

symphonic guises 

disguising spirals 

avatars sitars  

infinity strings 

calibrating 

precessional wheel 

dancing Kali 

matadored Shiva  

mandelbroting earth 

circumfral war  

raw through cycle 

never learnt… 

 

Terminal 2

 

Departure gate 

longing fears 

threaded tears 

reversing fate 

awash for mum & G. 

 

18 year of 

birth long breaths 

of genealogy security 

form countless mothering  

realities lamenting 

ages. 

 

Floodgates open, 

terminal flows 

life to flight 

nest assured, 

turbulent breath 

bellows lovingly 

piercing hollow, 

rebirthing 

the air. 

 

 

Oh mother

 

carcass 

what did we do? 

you nurtured soul 

succoured growth 

in tempestuous ways. 

 

you bore 

us all, tortured 

tainted fauna, 

quivering tremors  

awakening blame. 

 

your children’s greed 

blows Cronus winds, 

prophetic ways 

too human 

race devouring. 

corpse 

 

shake your welt 

dog-like 

from murmuring slumber 

whilst we suck 

longingly, 

chemically induced.

 

 

Ultra-Processed

 

Neuro-diverged platform 

pedestal 

precipice 

precarious 

tight- 

rope 

walk. 

 

Head-long gasping 

seamless grasping 

rhythm and  

rhymed 

rabid 

hole 

 

in head 

when’s said 

and done 

on dead 

expelled energy 

 

no matter 

what 

means  

tested 

benefits 

 outweigh. 

 

Take me algorithm 

Infuse your sequentials 

artificial or other 

hell to consequentials 

virtual search to 

ends of earth. 

 

Eternally cyber spaced 

heavenly vacuum 

vortex me in  

too deep 

reality. 

 

mon raison d'etre 

to live and die in  

musky space 

 

Kevin James Phillips - A life-time lover of language, Kevin is of Welsh Irish origin, raised in Port Talbot, currently residing in Swansea. He has been writing poetry for the past 20 years, though only sharing, publishing and performing his work for the past two years. He pieces have been published in Swansea Taliesin Anthologies, Opening the Lens and Cross City Poems and Stories, as well as Poetry Into Light. In addition, he has published in The Swansea Positive and was shortlisted for the New2theScene poetry competition 2024.