Look Up

I

Sovereign fires

Crane their necks thin

Hovering upon faultless feet

Weary scythes drop eaves

Overlook brothers of sleep,

Taking age to the face of day

Above brilliant margins

Drowsing sentinels

Illuminate the mainstream

Eclipse shadow anchors

Stretching bodies before

Into after,

Disinherited by dust

Marching amongst solitude

Marks the same length

Of loneliness

Where it seemed no difference;

The ways I chose

To choose.

II

Don’t be offended by

Our replies

Grown short

Like all bright things

We seem, do nothing,

But shine plenty.

Each asterisk bears exception

Knowing it is not special

But still my star insists

On being seen

Invisibly chained pinpricks to exile

Underline slur-smiling

Heat death of the universe.

Weightless in waiting

To defeat hollow phosphor

Of this district’s sour glow

Cold comfort finds us (telling lies)

Where there’s less to say

Rising, already night on my mind,

What seems so early

Is always getting late.

Adam Steiner’s poetry and fiction appear in Rockland Lit, Proletarian Poetry, The Next Review, Fractured Nuance zine, BoscRev: 4, The Weary Blues, The Stare’s Nest, ShoutOut UK, 3:AM, The Cadaverine, Spontaneity, Abridged 0-13, The Literateur, Nostrovia! SquawkBack, NOUS. Anthologies: Interpal – Palestine Verses, Fugue 1 (Siren Press), Poems Underwater, Stepaway – Voicewalks (Durham University).

Adam was selected for the 2014 Ó Bhéal Coventry-Cork Twin Cities Poetry Exchange and was part of the Coventry SHOOT Festival, 2014. He is former Editor of Here Comes Everyone magazine.

Adam is currently running the Disappear Here project to produce a series of poetry films about Coventry ringroad.