Two Poems by Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon

HELL'S OVERSPILL

Spaghetti days, tangle, oiled to slip from my fork leave me famished for meaning, a frantic

fandangle in thin air blown

through with top notes of Moroccan Rose, base notes of rotten fish.

Night’s wild-roamers flash by barely seen, shift, dance widdershins in rooms half-lit by moonshine,

wisped mist trails in their deadly wake, vapour breath fingers eyelashes, blows ice in crypts and cradles this ghoul-swept night.

Dead-tired ones woken, stricken, by unquiet ones. Foul thieves of peace.

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FOR SYLVIA

She glimpses magic

in smudged domestic life, fragile

wonder in mundanity. Death

can’t gas her lust, her words, to dust.

Sylvia and Ted,

their union, odd and rare, tautens

her instruments, art and pens. Sends love,

torture and poems to the thumbed page

to lie, die in ink and resurrect with grace.

Her drafted manuscripts, coddle love, gestate

Scalpels –

carry heft, craft complexities

compressed in honour of simplicity. Images sparkle,

trace clear etched lines, reflect her mind. Her books breathe

gifts: her storms and sighs, sorrow, joy and much besides.

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Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and writes short stories and poetry. She has been widely published in web magazines and in print anthologies. She was Highly Commended in the Blue Nib Chapbook Competition (Spring 2018) and won the Hedgehog Press Poetry Competition ‘Songs to Learn and Sing’ (August 2018). She graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University in 2017 and is now developing practice as a creative writing facilitator with hard to reach groups. She believes everyone’s voice counts.