Poetry: Selections from Christian Ward

J. Robert Oppenheimer Considers His Life

Daily, I detonate bombs at the breakfast

table. Toast absorbs my ash. Butter

throbs like a human heart in its ceramic

sarcophagus. Coffee is always bitter

in its astronaut helmet. Sometimes,

sometimes, I dream of weightlessness

to slip away from all this, to stare 

at the Earth and weep. I handle 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki like rosary beads, 

reciting their names until my mouth 

is a lifeless wasteland. Sometimes, 

I dream of strawberries in the backyard. 

Their soft, sweet hearts, an Earthly 

distraction. Look, the sky is wearing priest 

colours again. I'd ask for penance, 

but all I'd receive is a shrapnel of hail 

over and over and over.

Palms

A cartographer playing 

on an Etch-a-Sketch in the dark.

 

Each line a stitch on the verge

of becoming undone, a writhing mess

of serpentine lightning forks.

 

These are your fault lines.

See how they make you crack,

how easily you divide.

Caecilians

A bullet headed nightmare,

more worm than reptile.

It lays eggs in your dreams:

Watch how Mr. Darcy 

is a half eaten burrito

in the jaws of its young,

Optimus Prime reduced

to a magpie's nest of nuts 

and bolts. Garfield 

is confettied for its wedding.

Every Terminator is a Caecilian

smoothie, every Jedi a hors d'oeuvre.

This is no friendly chestburster,

but a metaphor for the love

craved the most: Brazen, bloody

and raw like the earthworm corpses

it tapas's. Take the shot, its movement says,

take every bullet until you're gargling lead

and tasting the unmistakable smoke 

of desire.

Mata mata turtle

Chelus fimbriata

 

I wear a chain of volcanoes

on my back, channel my inner 

magma and erupt when prey

try to slip by. A reptilian Kirby, 

I inhale enemies and let their final 

thoughts float like leaves 

on the river's surface. 

I'm a background that never 

changes; a relic old like the rivers 

which carry my dreams. In another 

universe, I have a cameo in the Teenage

Mutant Ninja Turtles as a gruff

Vietnam vet. Godzilla's misshapen

cousin gave me stardom. I jest.

In this universe, I'm a walking

autumnal collage waiting for Martha

Stewart to get me a Vogue photoshoot.

My eggs are bright like flash-bulbs -

see how they stun, how they always stun.

Nightmare Generator v1.0.0

 

The night-light of a neighbouring 

block of flats turned my brain

into a nightmare generator 

better than MidJourney or Dall-E 2.

Spores erupted from a maze

of marrow (thanks, HBO!). A half

buried skull of a television set

in a poppy field. My childhood

seeping out. Let's not talk 

about the sharks in hospital gowns.

Here's my fave: Father shouting 

"You’re here to work, not holiday"

at my aunt's country house. 

The decrepit building more bat

than stone. How can I forget 

the Donnie Darko rabbit skull

in the stew or father's voice

chasing me like the local boars

along roads winding like a thumbprint 

whorl? The nearby castle tower,

tall and judgemental like my aunt's 

finger when I returned. How can I forget

the axe hidden in the undergrowth,

waiting for me, always waiting for me?

Sawfish

 

Aquatic lumberjack. Chainsaw nose.

Lorena Bobbitt’s BFF. No originality

do Internet commentators have. 

I'm waiting for Freddy Krueger

to retire his shearing fingers

and Jason to hang up his husk

of a mask so I can scare the masses.

I can fell seaweed forests 

quicker than a time lord can regenerate.

Sculpt coral into faceless demon

sculptures. I shrink sharks back

into their IV pouches, send dogfish

back to their doghouses and command

dolphins to out trick the seas. 

I'm ready to invade your nightmares

like a Viking fuelled by tales of blood

and glory, your sweat and fear

glowing like the sweet, sweet glow

of Valhalla.

Christian Ward is a UK-based writer who has recently appeared in The Hemlock, Free Verse Revolution, The Dewdrop, Dodging the Rain, The Seventh Quarry, Bluepepper, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Amazine and Rye Whiskey Review. His first poetry collection, Intermission, is out now on Amazon.