YOU
I lock you in a box that I occasionally open
With that key I still pick up by the tip
Not the bow.
A place where I stow
Your hair clips and your tutus, pairs
Of polka dotted socks
and shiny buckled shoes.
Your name on tags, a name
I’ve known since I was six. Patterns
Saved of dresses
that I was going to sew and stitch.
WHEN
all seemed lost in a constant dusk,
Perhaps it did dream. The tree fell.
And beside that levelled birch, just behind
Its protruding stump, one sickly bud
From one ravelled shoot
felt the lick of
untrammelled sunbeam.
Turned the yellow to green
Becoming blooms of particular tinctures.
The melding unique and distinct in their nature.
The very paint of itself.
Never known
never seen since that light.
But I didn’t flower,
for no petal would ever be my colour.
No hint of my scent
in the savour from my oil.
And the light, I thought,
might’ve given me my strength,
Could’ve given me the time when it mattered
the most.
But within that dusking dark,
myself still emerged.
To stir the stem
for other blossoms to come.
DAY AT THE BEACH
Dilly-dallying,
shilly-shallying, my mind
Confined on this shoreline of mine.
I’ve been here before, many times many more.
The brine in the air assaulting my senses,
lining my gut with that same salted feeling.
That same sort of feeling
revealing my shy endeavour.
A spoiling reminder whatever the weather
I’ll always foil the very first step, the very first
Dip in the saltwater wet. Fearful
I’ll slip on the undersea flint
and slit the tip of my toe
or cut the side of my foot.
I know, I know…
Biding my time still afraid of that slice,
Never holding my nerve,
never turning the tide.
Dorian has always been fascinated by emotive language and the impact of textures and harmonies within words. His inspiration in writing stretches across a broad range of artistic influences from Caravaggio to Radiohead. After having several poems published, he is currently working towards his first collection of poems. He is a graduate from New Writing South, Brighton, England as well as being a Masters graduate from the LSE where he studied Politics and Psychology. When not writing he is mostly clearing up after his teenage children and then recovering by immersing himself in music and cursing the effects of old rugby injuries.
He lives in Sussex, England with his family.
Flight of the dragonfly 