The sensory garden has gone
full Monument Valley tonight.
A skyline to fathom what just happened,
fathom guilt – in the car park, mind.
To fathom endings – even though it wasn’t.
That last look – when it isn’t.
Backing out of the day room, nice and smooth
to car park order; under butane blue
skies fading down to the full butterfat.
Sunday League muddied with cloud skid –
cumuli as messengers, conveying
what I had seen and not heard. You;
sullen shadow, surrounded but alone
in the room of stretched emotions.
Protestations for patch repair,
and your other shitehawk words
left to the air; waiting for the clement
the caring to give them credence
and yet, I am outside
beneath Monument Valley tonight.
Joseph Long lives and works on the Medway as a father and Engineer, writing poetry between shifts. He has a passion for works which reflect working class life & culture and his main influences are John Cooper Clarke, Christopher Reid, John Burnside, Seamus Heaney, Ian Hamilton & Douglas Dunn. Joseph has been published by Stand, The Dawntreader (Indigo Dreams), Blackbox Manifold, Snakeskin Poetry, Littoral and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize for Poetry in 2025.