I want to eat delicious life,
Be able to bite rocks like bread
And butter buns with glaze of marl,
Munching mountains,
Crunching cliffs;
A lovely creamy lava dripping
Hotness of volcanic curry,
Poured over whole fried islands, spiced,
And after, cold, a shake — iceberg delight.
My wine: a glass of glacier milk
Whisked-in with freshing waterfalls,
A generous lick of sprinkled stars,
Finished with a cherry sun imploding
On my fizzy lips
And in the gardens of my sockets where
My sight and speech and smell shall be no more,
Cress shall grow abundantly
And in the greening larder of my corpse shall sport
Apocalyptic creatures lurching
Lacteous in tumbled cataracts
— All blind and white.
Clive Donovan devotes himself full-time to poetry and has published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Fenland Poetry Journal, Neon, Poetry Salzburg Review, Prole, Sentinel and Stand. He lives in Totnes, Devon, quite close to the river Dart. His debut collection was published by Leaf by Leaf in November 2021.