Poems by SJ Fowler

Grunt
 
‘So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds’
                                                                  Lucretius


 
Would drink taste of black liver?
The eyes water, often mistaken for weeping
as though forward motion
were a wheel spinning in the ditch
turning to bodies instead, to bury them.
The fish eats skin, starving.
From the back of a skull
emerges the beam which proves the yard.
Sarin, whisper that is not a sunbeam
but in-speared the night which asks you to leave.
Whispering to the auricle, De Rerum Natura
“You are not a good god”





 Sadly it began
 
‘Where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are looking.’
                                                       Gilgamesh
 
Sadly, with hands, one hundred men
hold a sword to light children’s neon.
They will have to make do with gas.
If I may be allowed to dedicate memory
to sons at sea and the longing, the killed
eaten guard of spaces owning ruin.
Standing between Imperial & earth police
ready part of a closed garden, selling time into money.
Think about the taking of a life and death as a lesson:
net > spear, their life, first nations; a rain on red glove.

About the poet

SJ Fowler is a poet, artist & curator. He works in the modernist and avant-garde traditions, across poetry, fiction, theatre, sonic art, visual art, installation and performance. He has published multiple collections of poetry and been commissioned by Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, The British Council, Tate Britain, The London Sinfonietta and Wellcome Collection. He has been translated into 18 languages and performed at venues across the world, from Mexico City to Erbil, Beijing to Tbilisi. He is the poetry editor of 3am magazine, Lecturer at Kingston University, teaches at Tate Modern and the Poetry School, and is the curator of the Enemies project.

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