On the first night of the dark moon
In Bolton,
In a basement,
In a tall black room with a hard black floor
I listened,
To a woman,
To a tall dark haired woman dressed all in black
Reading poems,
Long dark poems,
New Scriptures about God and a woman and a box and a Beast
The Beast.
I escaped the beast,
Going forth alone
Into the dark night
Down long dark streets
Where long black rats with long black tails
Scattered before my feet
Into the long dark shadows.
Oh Lord my God grant me a box,
A box,
A box of matches
And candles,
Lots and lots of candles,
Oh Lord I beseech thee,
LET THERE BE LIGHT!
• Elaine Speakman says “I am an 'overgrown' (50 something years old) student who has just started on the MA in Creative Writing with Jon Glover at Bolton University. All my life I been both a lover of and a scribbler of poems, but it is only in the last 5 years (since my supposedly mid life crisis) that I have begun to take my own work seriously.
