Linnet Phoenix is a poet based in Bristol in the South West of England. She has been writing poetry for years. She also enjoys riding her Icelandic horse in the countryside.

Heads Up

Whose headroom was it?
The wooden floorboards soaked
with sunbeams leaning through an open window,
giving the room an amber anticipation hue.
The bed stood solitary.
A room so sparsely furnished it wept.
On white cotton bed linen words softly spoken.
Blue skies watched with questioning eyes
when the silk skin curtain cushioned inside.

Yesterday we wrecked it.

Tearing up the verbs like we were immortal,
stripping away any extraneous strands.
Those painful moments sugar sweetened.
Throat stroked words whispered softly.
Accelerated brain storm swirled faster,
eyes closed, nose to nose, pages fluttered.
Today the page is torn away, blank again.
I wait for the empty moon to shine songs
without you.

Empty Skies

We have ridden this loop more times 
than the death toll daily update
that persists in invading my phone.
 
We are alone on this home straight. 
Only the sounds of your four-track gait,
the occasional scrape of steel on tarmac.
 
The song of a solo blackbird sits proud 
in full view of the late afternoon sun.
 
The pair of buzzards airborne, battle
a raven high above the river dell 
bottom of those cool dark woods.
 
The stillness is broken by a warm
blustery breeze, which will not 
let our hair be still in this near quiet.
Like my mind which is ruffled by you.
 
My eyes are drawn skywards to see
the emptiness. The blue interchanging
with white and grubby shadowed clouds 
is void of a single aeroplane.
 
How I wish I could spot just one
transatlantic flight, skimming overhead.
Heathrow to who knows where, without 
a care for those left wondering below.
 
Driving home I see the moon lounging 
in yesterday's nightwear. Why should
she care when everyone is staying home.
When nobody is going anywhere soon.

 

Dionysius’s Daytime Drinker 

Oh Dennis, you dirty drunken old bastard. 
You should have stayed skulking state-side 
and drowning your sorrows in Sauvignon.
 
In you came blustering and blasphemous. 
You kicked over conspiracies committed,
fake news long fled a shagged shore.
 
What's more, we no longer cared, your airs
tore tears blinding, brought on street lamps,
a midday massacre, piss stained road spray.