DAVID J COSTELLO
Sea of Souls
The not quite dead dance here
just beneath the surface
revolving in pairs
like underwater butterflies
the sky returning a rainbow
of their wings
that leaches down
to paint them back again.
Mandrake
I am ascending something slow.
Something beneath me.
I feel it rising underfoot arching me skywards.
It is obdurate and unrelenting.
A sluggish catapult relaxing me through elastic air.
My carefully revealed root is the same
size and shape as me.
Grubby mandrake flesh
exhumed from its tomb.
Screaming into the light
in an agony of understanding.
Polio Ward
At the foot of her bed
A casement of lead
Curtained, but open,
And painted with garden
And light leaking in
Dusts the numb of her skin
Playing patterney games
With its feathery flames
And she prays for the pain
Of a burn or a blister
But feels just one hurt
As she watches her sister.
David J Costello lives in Wallasey, Merseyside, and is co-organiser of local poetry venues Bards of New Brighton and Liver Bards. His work has been published in several anthologies and poetry journals including Quantum Leap, Reach Poetry and Envoi. He has been short-listed and placed in various competitions, most recently being short-listed for the 2011 Grist Poetry Prize and winning the 2011 Welsh Poetry Competition.
