two poems

by Nick Power

BIDSTON OVERPASS

Great overpass – heroes of our night – re-

membering that hungry period before we

learned to fuck each other in the correct

holes – crisppacket contraceptives in the

dark of Tracy’s garden -– our spit was green,

always green, singing death songs, death

songs, happy happy hardcore – death

songs death songs, happy hardcore.

Up there on the overpass – cars whizzing

by – their intentions were clear: drop rocks

on windscreens of moving vehicles: fifty

points an HGV, a hundred for a scooter.

(1993)

STAR OF SEAFORTH

Take one star out of the blanket sky

to guide us home

memory is a wake, you say, and here’s 

a map of that wake

through the Eldonian and over the broo, 

the scorched city limits

to love’s open coffin. And if memory is the

end of all thought, then

that thought is a coda, a return to zero,

the eyes of a saviour. 

But what’s the mind made of, if not that

stolen golden sun you’re 

holding? On our way, you spray the names

of angels across 

motorway underpass: Gabriel, Uriel,

Azrael. The names fade quickly, 

acquiesce back into the aggregate. And

suddenly that’s funny, as

we swing from ceiling fans across shelled

rooms of the old Girobank,

motes of golden light appearing beyond

distant metropolis

a cosmos of people, waking. What will you

do now we’re close?

I’ll take one star out of this moment’s

mouth. Put it in 

your chest, fill that void of emotion. Come

on, we can go over that

river together, if you like. We are precious,

our dreams are precious,

we’ll dream them together, as the dream

of each other. 

Photo of Nick Power

BIO: Nick Power is a writer and musician from Wirral, Merseyside in the North of England. He has had a number of books published, notably Bright Angel Proof and tour diary Into the Void, both with erbacce-press.