Imagine the bricks that build concepts flowing
along tightly meandering axons, labyrinthine dendritic tributaries
and concentration gradients in the stormy chasms of clefts,
gathering into neat piles where a handful of mud announces itself
or a moment of claustrophilic submission makes itself known,
arranging themselves into plinths for gold medals left behind
by decomposing poets whose printed pages are next to rot.
Nowhere, not even as a pile of cracked rubble and dust,
have I perceived a concept resembling progression,
credible sensation of movement, flex of a stiff limb
or a crack, tap, smash and a beam of light,
hold my rock while I bandage my smoking fingers,
revive the engine for a swim and exhume the rebel for a dance.
Definitely (buzz) no room for movement squished
in walls of such and such dimensions,
and it couldn't have been so bad, except it was,
and then it was and it was and it is.
- Jude Murphy
Nalini Priyadarshni is the author of Doppelganger in My House and co author of Lines Across Oceans. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, podcasts and international anthologies including In-flight Magazine, Poetry Breakfast, Yellow Chair Review. Her poems and views on poetry and life have been featured on AIR (All India Radio) and FM radio. She lives in India.
Conor D. Ryan: BA English and Sociology; MA Engish. Currently in pursuit of an MA Digital Humanities. [email protected]. http://w1ld3rcard.wordpress.com/
Brian Sheehan writes stories and poems. His work has appeared in The Incubator, Ibis Head Review and Brilliant Flash Fiction. He lives in Dublin.