bad dream
malum somnium
a found poem
as the daughter of a bankrupt businessman
I’m into men in prison and the hashtagged word
erasure of memory is the abiding theme
trying to hurt a person’s physical being
cum fundis et sagittis amoris
with slings and arrows of love
while the war goes largely unmentioned
I’m rarely this lyrical but year by year
I’m inching slowly towards a now
where we’re expected to agree
that the bitter medicine is good for us
it goes beyond friendship
vadit ultra politica
it goes beyond politics
it goes beyond fear of writer’s block
this fascination with the truth
behind the truth as it’s presented
the silence that precedes the nightmare
Julie Mellor holds a PhD from Sheffield Hallam University. Her poems have appeared in various magazines and her pamphlets, Breathing Through Our Bones (2012) and Out of the Weather (2017) are published by Smith/Doorstop. She blogs at http://juliemellorpoetsite.