Roy Duffield

Barcelona, Spain

Roy Duffield was honoured to be picked to perform at last year’s Beat Poetry Festival in Barcelona. He has a first-class degree in creative writing from Bath Spa University and his work has recently appeared (or soon will) in The Trouvaille Review, Night Bus to Speakers' Corner, Anti-Heroin Chic, Half-baked, The Medley, The Dawntreader, Jalada Africa, Pure Slush and an as yet untitled anthology to raise money for Marie Curie nurses during the coronavirus pandemic. More of his poetry can be found on Instagram: @drinking_traveller.

Date poem was written: 21st March 2020

Coronation

All is calm out on the streets

While amputated at the knees

Wanderers who no more wander

Their children wonder what’s beyond the

City walls of peace and quiet

Dirty screens of sex and finance.

On windowsill balcones:

Weeds, not violets

They strain to hear who’s next to die. All

Hell is raging in their minds

“We’ll get engaged in due time,”

A voice echoes, over Skype.

The door is closed, from inside

Her loving husband’s narrow cell

“What’s the fuss, man? What the hell!”

But as the months pass in this way

They begin to fear their own decay

Like their neighbours, they are snipers

They get their neighbours in their sights and

Stockpile ammo, load their rifles

Take aim, and prepare to fire.

Those without a decent piece

Throw the fruit of stunted trees

Malnourished under iron leaves

Of airtight, light-tight canopies…

But as the years pass in this way

No-one, not one, thinks to say:

How easy the pacification

Of every free [read: passive] nation

And when they do decide to leave

Know that they can’t count on me.

They had their chance. The hour’s late.

Now it’s time they face their fate:

All is calm out on the streets

When amputated at the knees.