The News is in
The news is in. Grey fears can go away now.
These flames are black and green,
the colours of disease.
It isn’t true!
But only because I keep my eyes closed.
If I open them,
the wall offers an Arctic ferment of blues,
the ceiling is a jewellery shop full of stars.
How can the world be so beautiful
when you are crouched
in a howl of grief,
weeping at the hospital window,
waiting for the executioner to close your eyes?
I arrive with plastic grapes and plastic flowers,
knowing I may be here for a long time.
The fear, like all our illnesses, is catching.
William Bedford’s poetry has appeared Agenda, Encounter, The John Clare Society Journal, London Magazine, The New Statesman, Poetry Review, The Tablet, The Washington Times and many others. Red Squirrel Press published The Fen Dancing in March 2014 and The Bread Horse in October 2015. He won first prize in the 2014 London Magazine International Poetry Competition. Dempsey & Windle published Chagall’s Circus in April 2019. His latest collection, The Dancers of Colbek, was published by Two Rivers Press in January 2020. http://www.williambedford.co.uk/