*a poem by Erik Kennedy; more about him below…
The light lengthens on the carpet,
a sure symptom of afternoon.
I haven’t left the house today
because there’s only one reason
to do that, and I’ve already got goat cheese.
A half moon is only a quarter of the moon.
This sky should win trophies.
I look at other people, their energy,
and think they must have been raised by marmots.
I know for the sake of social cohesion
we must try to live togetherly,
like Bronze Age women and men,
but it’s been a long week, and, anyway,
petrol prices have gone up again.
*Erik Kennedy is a poet who (& yes, I’d never heard of him either) lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch, New Zealand. He co-edited No Other Place to Stand, an anthology of climate change poetry from Aotearoa and the Pacific (Auckland University Press, 2022). His poetry chapbook Twenty-Six Factitions was published with Cold Hub Press in 2017, and his first full collection, There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime, was shortlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry in 2019. His latest collection – published this year – is entitled Sick Power Trip.