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Likestarlings is a place for talking in poems. We pair poets with poets and they write a sequence of six new works by responding in turn to one another. Our palaver blog goes beyond poetry to discuss collaboration in theory and in practice. Please take a look, and feel free to add comments, opinions and suggestions here. Read poems here
 

 

Shabbier than I am. His onesie

covered with the smashed peas

of his brother. Scarf over his mouth:

I am a bad man. He says. I am a man

who drinks coffee. He says. Some tree

in winter becomes

the tree that should be cut down

with the tree cutter train. Says the bad man.

One tree in winter, he says,

becomes its needles, and then,

its hole.


And if you are comfortable,

mascara covering his chin for the beard;

the road outside hangs itself

from the sky which is where, the bad man says,

the dragon is ruptured of the mountain.

I am a nice dragon. Says the nice dragon.

I will take care of you. Says the dragon.

The mountain does rupture, I tell him.

And the road will hang. The road, I said,

holding the shabbier little baby, that you stand in.