BROWSE Columns
✕
the oldest charm is springing pinks like poppers
its bedfellows tangling their way through alliums
— over-protective cane-staked companions ––
warding off those tiny sap-sucking insects
who vary greatly in their drunken colours.
the impossibly handsome lilac petals are a rose
so good i could eat it. this is not a metaphor
although its two brothers are over-diseased ––
killing two roses with no hope like cutting
a gateway flower with electric secateurs.
dead leaves what we wish we didn’t need
but a butterfly on borage is good –– not hiding
behind onions –– and its flowers cleanse blood.
Simon Maddrell's poems have appeared in numerous publications including Acumen, AMBIT, berlin lit, Magma, Poetry Wales, Stand, The Gay & Lesbian Review, The Moth, The Rialto, Under the Radar. In 2020, Simon’s debut chapbook, Throatbone, was published by UnCollected Press, and Queerfella jointly-won The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition. Isle of Sin (Polari Press, 2023); The Whole Island (Valley Press, 2023); a finger in derek jarman's mouth (Polari Press, 2024) were all Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Selections.
