Ronan Fenton

Senescence

bless me father for I have / padlock in fist to mandible
sinned for the last time / unlaced boots trudging up to attic
for the last time in my life / snicking shut around the latch
for the first time in my life / what have we done wrong father
for no reason other than / nothing, you have done nothing (wrong) at all

bile-heavy with the past’s plucked teeth / wasp nest up in rafters
chewing my meals with ribbons / will be there until winter
to a carrion pulp / then die of starvation
empty mouthfuls all taste the same / put them in quarantine
to a tongue levelled with acid / there will be no further colonies in this house
licking barbs of stingers from carpet / no escape routes in the attic
black forest embedded in pink mucosa / no playing doctor to pests
curling inwards towards the throat / no search parties for skeleton keys
plates of the coming self / staircase off limits until further notice
bitten down to scraps and regurgitated / frost-laved sun plummeting unbidden

bless me father for I have / padlock in fist to mandible
sinned for the first time / unlaced boots trudging down from attic
for the first time in my life / doorway breached by widening beam of light
for the last time in my life / what have I done wrong father
for no reason other than / nothing, you have done nothing (wrong) at all
reeling ligament from inoperable futures / wasp nest up in rafters
tying my limbs with it / yellow jackets burying eggshell carpet
until swollen numb / lying countlessly still under winter sun
tingling from lack of blood / crunching underfoot

I am brought to scraped knees / sift them around in my hand / stare at the grey clump / of a defective heart / abandoned in the rafters / fill my palms with brittle bodies / bring them to my lips / tell them all the things I have done / all the things I am about to do / I tell them
nothing / nothing (wrong) at all.

blue dance river

blue dance river
substance
atoms belong
tranquilized ring from nowhere
judgement space void
velocity
voluminous
inkling
numerology necromancy knowledge
necrophilia
sisterhood
linkage lineage
transmigration
ataraxia ambivalence
lucid peregrine paladin vocoder
tinsel logograph listening
turbulent palomino wingspan
origami utterance
usefulness usual
usury usurper tingle
rhizomatic omniscience pattern
wavelength
system
singularity
hopeless
perfection
pinpoint
glistening
glory
savage
silence
ending

In my poetry, language itself is as important as any fluctuating meaning that might be interpreted by the reader as residing beneath the words. As such, the text as it dwells on the page can be read in a number of different ways: as asemic visuals, as a narrative, or as sonic poem poetry. Senescence and blue dance river are both written in an experimental vein. The former revolves around an incident in my childhood when I discovered an attic full of dead wasps, an image that has remained with me vividly after so many years, and I juxtaposed this image with the feeling of unease I have continued to associate with the event since then, albeit a feeling that shifts over time as I grow with the memory. blue dance river was more of a linguistic experiment meant to explore the relations between seemingly unrelated words, examining how the poet's mind creates their own links through the apparent randomness of word selection and how the reader likewise creates their own unique links. These poems, in a way, can thus be read as an interrogation of the mind that spins the world from the text of the poem, as disordered as experience itself.

Ronan Fenton is an Irish writer living in Dublin. He has an MA in Creative Writing from UCD and a BFA in songwriting from BIMM. He writes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama and art criticism, and is currently querying his debut novel.

Twitter: @Ronanfenton36