Poetry by Adam Stokell

​
Small rain among us

settling so gently,
sound of our frowns
dissolving, glare shushed,
scree up the back of the block rounds down
to a stroll, we take the slow
hint, slow hands pay close
attention, diamantine
in our slept-in furs and webs, wipers
intermittent, water still beads,
we’re better people for it,
we disendorse barbed fencelines,
let stressed gigapedes come-go-come,
drought-fused hair on our brain-bones,
hackled into quills, disarms,
would rather play soggy poems,
eaves drop go drip, snails gasm,
who better than the hot-
bottled birds, the chromes and
the drabs, jamming the bandwagon
back together, jars of drizzle
curdling into frogs, frogs
out there rolling their r’s up
into more small rain among us,
kissing, so slowly,
potholes into ponds.



​

Vast betweens

More than it means to lose face,
dears, personable suns,
setting out as one shunned,

waysides wanting none of it,
chattels, kilos gained over square years,
no where to stow what spurning can’t

sustain, hardwood dreams, furnished
words unfurl out speeding windows
as lit subscriptions smoke, flight

without followers, following on earth
what lead, mute within missives,
making out, made for the vast betweens,

where grainy dashcams die to tell
how asphalt boiled between towns,
the verges charred, the bridges down,

after all the prefix re
assured, crumbs and crests,
at least two ways to exit left


​

Adam Stokell’s poems have appeared in various journals, most recently in Cordite, Pendemic and Necro. His first poetry collection, Peopling The Dirt Patch (A Published Event, 2018), formed part of The People’s Library exhibit at the Long Gallery, Salamanca. He lives in Hobart, Tasmania.