by Ewen Glass
Le Plateau
‘The Sound of Silence’ in French,
men playing chess at plastic tables.
Last time I saw that was in Vienna,
all those old bahnhof guys;
a permanent beer and never drunk.
I can't say the same.
I trapped my finger in a car door once
and it wasn't as precarious as this,
caught between fun and maudlin
on an early spring night in Montréal,
like a shit Leonard Cohen.
Tentpole
It's seven pm, midnight my time,
tomorrow when you get this,
the lapsed timeline of a tentpole
release the studio needs to mitigate
its slate. Offsetting losses doesn't
sound romantic, but it’s a goose
golden as the hour before night falls,
on me as it has on you. It covered
me from all angles once /\
before you didn't let it touch me.
Misplaced Sanguine
A close-lipped smile and a breath through the nose;
such land-mines of stoicism.
In the heat of the blast your body’s still holding the
shape of an emoji shrug;
you've just finished saying that's life, in the same way
it’s thought we’re programmed
to forget pain when not in its throes. But what about
letting them sit in it for a moment
instead of suggesting the beach, the store, a little
something to take their mind off it?
The friendly fire of sanguine’s true meaning: blood red.
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Ewen Glass is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art Poetry. Bluesky/X/IG: @ewenglass