The Poetry Kit

HOME     POETRY KIT COURSES     SUBMISSIONS    CITN     NEWSLETTER     BOOKSHOP     BLOG

 

POETRY IN THE PLAGUE YEAR

Poems written during the Coronavirus Outbreak 2020

How to submit   -  Back to Contents

 

S J Fowler

London UK

 

Written 5th May 2020

 

SJ Fowler is a writer, poet and artist who lives in London. His work has been commissioned by Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, Somerset House, Tate Britain, the London Sinfonietta, Kettle’s Yard, UNESCO, Whitechapel Gallery, Southbank Centre, National Centre for Writing, National Poetry Library, Science Museum and Liverpool Biennial amongst others. He has published eight collections of poetry, five of artworks, six of collaborative poetry plus volumes of selected essays and selected collaborations. His writing has explored subjects as diverse as prescription drugs, films, fight sports, museums, prisons and animals. http://www.stevenjfowler.com 

 

a scale

 

covered in some metal

kept indoors

not so good but swimming

like the metaphor of bacteria

on the fish

being referenced

 

on fingers of even tiny animals

we wash

for what is our ocean

but a sock

to rub metal from the feet

of people forced in homes

 

the ocean of microbes

make scales shine

and reduce 

to an empty alarm

that it could do with washing

 

water of the mouth

now in small muds

with microbial taxa

and secrets underwater

 

ignoring humans

it goes into clear ocean together

with us

to look out forward