offshore austerity by Reuben Woolley

what sound do windows make
when they do not open

…………………….a signed story
…………………….laughing at surfaces
………………………………….only

standing
in some direction

they don’t provide for safety
& nothing’s allowed
to surprise……………not even
a sun
………rising
over ring roads

……….whose heads
are hanging now
……….these tired
precincts & cathedral
bones

we bleed
impatient
& stories
………tell stories
to fill the holes.the old birds
gaunt…………& greyling
in winds
unfeathered

uncrying
in corners
…………they hold for saviours

it’s a poor logic
of numbers.no words
to bury
………..we are
transparent
in burning rain
the leftovers
……………….thumbed
down by vacant caesars.raw
liver
for slavering jaws

..

Bio:
Reuben Woolley has been published in various magazines including Tears in the Fence, The Lighthouse Literary Journal, The Interpreter’s House, Domestic Cherry, The Stare’s Nest and Ink Sweat and Tears. His collection, the king is dead  was published in 2014 with Oneiros Books and a chapbook, dying notes, in 2015 with Erbacce Press. Runner-up: Overton Poetry Pamphlet competition and the Erbacce Prize in 2015. Editor of the online magazines: I am not a silent poet and The Curly Mind. A new collection on the refugee crisis, skins, has been published by Hesterglock Press, 2016.