Cold Turkey. By Dennis Moriarty

Without Whiskey the night is a sharper
Deeper thrust of darkness,

A scalpel's red, red revelation, the blade
Scraping the surface of my soul.

A night devoid of pills is too vast a continent
Of agony to be conquered

By a soft touch and the kind words of some
Imaginary god

Sent down to anoint my body in the blood
Of my own suffering.

And this night, a night of enforced abstinence,
Predatory silence lurking,

Spreading and setting like a stain on my mind,
I am the carcass of a cold turkey

Scavenged by crows in the bone yard
Of all my lost days.

Dennis Moriarty was born in London, England and now lives in Wales. Married with five grown up offspring Dennis likes walking the dog in the mountains, reading and writing.
In 2017 he won the Blackwater poetry competition and went to county Cork in Ireland to read his work at the international poetry festival. Dennis has had poems featured in many publications including Blue nib, Our poetry archive, Setu bilingual, The passage between and others.