Poetry by Ben Parker


Convocation of the Moth


“Numerous angel of the night
                                        like us you are lost.
Reluctant lords of the constant light
                                     we greet you.
To the clipped seraphs
                                   all hail.”


Day drops from view.
                                Shadows spread
like surplus clouds.
                             A single elevated lamp
opens the dark
                          and brings the sound of flight.
Burnt-paper priests
                              descend:
ten thousand bodies
                            black-furred and weightless.
With reverence below
                               adoring crowds attend.
Flower-heads bend to the light.
                                  Grass-snakes stir.
The dry stubble-grass breaths,
                                    dew collects,
withered bark renews
                                 and grows tight on the tree.
But always dust builds,
                                always the wing-powder
deposited by flight
                           obscures the torch.
The moths depart.
                          Silence resumes.
The shapes are eaten by sky.


Road



And sometimes it comes down to simply this:
killing the lights at 60mph
and threading the bullet-point tracery
of powered cats eyes that stud the tarmac
like vertebrae seen on an x-ray,
as the black rum of the after-sunset sky
darkens further and life is stretched ahead
like a to-do list, behind like a time-line.