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Howard Wright

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Centrum

Lakes wear synthetic fleece; villages sink like coins
into upholstery. Mountains buckle under the strain.
I skirt the pleated hemline of the smooth stewardess
who sets me down in central Europe, its batik fields,
slide rules and bearded masters of game theory.

My bilingual change speaks volumes. I buy prints
of the Forgotten District where a leadership is buried;
browse a library of mourning stone, its chiselled
screams like recordings of death’s awkward rituals,
and through needle rain circle the Empty Quarter

drawn by whispers to a solemn river stitched with
bridges, spokes from the ur-centre – hub and spindle –
suspended from squadrons of angels folded like sick
pigeons bloated with darkness, right wing government,
and a culture that replaces feathers with industrial ash.

Howard Wright lectures in Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Ulster, Belfast. Recent poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland and Cyphers. His first collection, King of Country, is in preparation at Blackstaff Press.

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