Poetry by Naomi Madlock

      Vincent Parsons CC




GUTTER DAYS


She used to dance on broken glass,
used to peck, every morning, 
her own feet
from the glue trap.

Sometimes the only way out 
is through a wound.
And there is only so much room 
in the lungs for lamentation. 

Sometimes a song 
repeats until its melody 
becomes a mania.
So she cages herself 

and waits for night to play
its old magic trick: held 
between its hands, she vanishes
and reappears, 

another dove entirely.






ACCORDING TO BINDWEED


There’s no such thing as annihilation.

                I’ve been there. And I know 
                I’m not the first night-bloomer
to be caught off-guard by early frost 
and nature shouting adapt adapt 
                not the first to waste my throat 
                begging the plough, nor the first to hole up 
too deep. And why not. I hear hell’s lovely
this time of year. The fires are in bloom.
                All that smoke to hide behind, an excuse 
                to die back to the root and turn 
to lateral growth. Perhaps for months 
your only friend will be the dirt. 

A weed, by definition, is unwanted
and abundance is too much for some. 
                And no matter how much is cut from you
                there is always more of you to cut.
And, again and again, there will come 
an aftermath of greener pasture, spring 
                boiling over in the valley of morning 
                glories, when all the wild and wilful
stumble from the soil to rub their eyes,
and look: there’s little Lazarus
                unfurling his shroud. Amid the din 
                of heretics and honey-makers
you can just about hear him breathe 

I told you so.

​




EMERGENTS


Expect heraldry. Expect fledgling 
goldfinches to topple 

into the sky, the disinterment 
of rose chafers in their disco 

getup, a June so full it spills 
indoors. You’ve made a habit 

of asking before entering 
your own room, forgotten 

how to don a red apron and swing 
out of the weather house. Look 

how the spiderlings cast themselves 
on threads the colour of wind 

into the unknown. I’ve heard the sun
can grow an oak, the robin

testing every note it knows.
I’ve heard that the flare 

of a perished firefly pulses 
long enough to light up a frog, 

that noctilucent clouds 
portend another tomorrow.

Forecast coral and saffron. 
Forecast meadows welling over 

with dew. Remove your shoes, 
for every blade of grass 

is sanctified. And every mote 
of pollen, and every atom that rises 

as scent. 



​

​Naomi Madlock lives in Bristol, UK. Her work is featured in Kingfisher Magazine, The Shore, LEON Literary Review, The Madrigal, and others. At the University of Exeter, she was awarded the Gamini Salgado prize for her dissertation collection She Writes in Golden Ink. Her work draws inspiration from nature to articulate themes of stagnation, resilience and surrender. You can find her on Twitter @naomimadlock and Instagram @naomi_madlock_poet