Blood In The Mouth by Dennis Moriarty

Time and rain are relentless.

They flush me out

And drive me like a startled pheasant

Across open fields

Four barrels of thunder gunning

My brain.

I seek refuge in the dank earthly womb

Of a wood,

The sky’s enormous cavity closing

Quickly behind me.

Great trees creak like bones on a

Geriatrics ward.

Sinister silhouettes, crows perch still

As gargoyles,

Their laughter damp and mirthless

As grief,

Their distain one dimensional, flat

And porous as time itself.

The canopy crashes, smashed by raw

Fists of rain,

The sky falls in and the wind howls

Like a ravenous wolf

Already salivating at the thought of

My flesh,

Already tasting the first hot metallic spurt

Of my blood in his mouth.

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.