Poetry: Selections from Benjamin Riddle

Ephemeral

We languish in our ephemeral words,

hanging there with the ghosts of our good intentions.

I'm lying half-dressed on that rug

you always loved, the one I

never understood,

waiting for you to draw the curtains;

to find out if we are still lovers, or if we have gone back

to being good friends.

The empty bottle of wine speaks to our decadence,

brought up from your family's cellar.

Nothing makes me feel more like a stranger

in your family's home than the opulence.

Phonaesthetically, cellar door is one

of the most pleasing phrases in

the English language;

the wine clings

to my teeth, and

I want nothing more than

to fuck you against it

until every corner

of the house is

haunted with our sounds,

until every creak reminds you of me.

The fireplace beside me keeps warm

the space I wish you always took,

the one that makes people saythey are as close as family,

they share everything.

You stand by the window,

dressing gown draped from your shoulders.

In the dim light, you look like you are

a conquering hero posing for

portrait, and I wonder if

my body is just

another empire.

Perhaps that is all it was ever good for.

Tenebrous

We walk together down

the tenebrous spiral staircase of the self;

past quiet rooms where children

play with coloured blocks

filled with past

experience,

down, down past

your teenage bedroom littered

with band tees, first kisses,

walls painted with who

you were, or I was, or

the universality

of rebellion

as a mechanic of constructing

our missing identity; we

pass the car crash

the I'm sorry,

the letting go.

We find the grieving,

the late nights and whiskey

that slept in a small bottle beside

your books, your meds; your

memories. We come to

the bottom of the stairs to find ourselves

quietly ascending, then wait

there patiently in the dark; waiting

in these hallowed, tenebrous halls for

something to find us. This is how we remember hope.

Benjamin Riddle is building, and this is the most interesting thing about him, a little library of all the contemporary poetry he can get his hands on. (The voices of poets go still too soon).