Wah-Wah Pedal Poem
I hide a knife amongst a bush longing to burn,
days like these are plots from a heathen’s bible.
Broken glass, making noise on the skeleton-throne night
becomes heartless stone, guilty as mathematics bleeding poetry from the gums of my street.
I pick up my phone – wrong number :
She wants to speak to Mike, half-brother of a man
last seen hijacking a small cargo plane
bound for Santiago. I told her Mike’s dead. I gave the receiver back to its taker.
His full brother’s the one I want,
I’ll do anything to find him, wring a plot for my poem
from a serpent
shimmering in his throat
John Doyle is from County Kildare in Ireland, and now lives in Dublin with his wife and their two dogs. He’s had 10 poetry collections published since 2017, and works as a librarian.