JAN 7~ CHRISTIAN WARD

It's due time to celebrate the talented poet, Christian Ward, known to some as "fighting cancer with poetry" (his Instagram handle, where he frequently posts his work). Today, I'm shining the spotlight on three of Ward's fine poems:  Aubade, An Honest Shade of Green, and How to Walk Through Walls. I find Ward's lines like, "This is the green worthy of the fruit bowl, a painting of a painting of a fruit bowl," reminiscent of  some of my very favorite poets, such as Thom Gunn or, perhaps, Diane Seuss. Please enjoy! And, thanks Christian, for sharing your words with SHINE.

Aubade

I slip into fox in the final verse
of moonsong. Shed badger,
hare, owl. The dressing room
of night mirrors my flighty form –

undressing to reveal a threadbare
body nude and beautiful in this hour,
while I show how easy it is to lose
the harshest of skins lodged
like a pebble under the tongue.

The city passes no judgement
on my behaviour as it shifts
into cockroach, rat, wolf.
The unfinished draft of a housecat.

An Honest Shade of Green

The lawn is technicolour bright --
a shade of green enough to stop the sky,
halt the merry-go-round clouds.
This is an honest shade of green? yes.
This is the green worthy of the fruit bowl,
a painting of a painting of a fruit bowl.
This is the green worthy of the lock screen
flicked open with pride, its light
unpeeling the autumnal early nights.
This is an honest shade of green? yes.
Enough to make a sham of the moonlight
posing like a hanger on, a hand-me-down
waiting for the next recipient. The lawn
is an honest shade of green, yes.
These are the blades of grass open not
for discussions of the bet you made
or whether last night's dinner was satisfactory
as a fox’s grin. These are the blades
of grass asking you for your honesty,
your humility, for your words not to graze
them like the first mowing of the month.
This is an honest shade of green? yes.

How to Walk Through Walls

Be still like the conductor's baton of a heron
orchestrating the flow of a river.

Be still like the finale of a horse chestnut
blossom nestled in the knuckle of autumn's chill.

Be still like a pike embracing the net,
a skeleton staircase of geese sleeping mid-flight,
a robin capturing the sunset in its eye.

Be still like a freshly fallen apple being mapped
by a cartographer fly.

Always remember you are the fruit,
the earth, the cycle.

Christian Ward is a UK-based poet with work in Acumen, Dreich, Dream Catcher, Dodging the Rain and Canary, and others. He was longlisted for the 2023 Aurora Prize for Writing, shortlisted for the 2023 Ironbridge Poetry Competition and 2023 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, and won the 2023 Cathalbui Poetry Competition.