Glen Gower
There is something growing beneath your skin.
Bristles burst from hidden hearths while stolen feelings
like steely demons scourge the violent hills.
From atop the tower, the blessed Glen Gower
calls the riders in.
Changeling
Oh changeling,
you creeping, sleeping tame thing
climb down from that steeple high,
let me gaze upon your face tonight.
Look not backwards, forget my soul,
what you spy there has gone before.
Will yourself up into the clouds,
a desert landscape, a crimson shroud,
beyond the river there lies the key
there lie the waters, those that be.
Move through yourself like a
consuming snake, find the figure,
that geometric mistake.
Point the finger to the sign above,
the chi, the rho, the fallen dove.
This bridge is broken, I cannot sleep,
this dream, a token, to protect and keep.
Oh changeling,
you creeping, sleeping tame thing.
Winter Stasis
Soon the crystal mind will shed itself.
Snowflakes hang static in the breathless wind,
the storm in the firmament, the storm within.
What infinite descent will cloud the soul
if not for the pine to root it, to keep it whole?
Such tender frames plague the winter sky,
you can trace the time, the finger guides the eye.
Reverse the fall, feel the ancient breath,
your stinging face, you descend from Seth.
Look there! The sky in it fullness shows
the cathedral vaults, the suspended snows.
Just Hush
Often times I tell myself I’ve been thinking too much.
No rush of the river can soften its touch
but relief, relief can be found in an empty cavern
drained of the tide and left untouched.
Just air, just hush, often you say too much.
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa is the 2016 recipient of the English Society Creative Writing Award for Poetry. His work, both as a poet and a critic, is deeply concerned with the sacred experience. He credits the Symbolist movement and 20th-century Imagism as important influences. Cosmin’s work seeks to engage with the imagination through striking visual representations.