September coming down as a spider web
across the eye of the bay, slow nestle of dusk
filling everywhere with shadow;
the day narrows, the world drops still.
Even the sea appears to be sleeping,
hypnic twitches of waves
rustle under the land's nose, fallow breaths
taking nothing and leaving nothing.
The island stays afloat as some small god,
impermeable and eternal,
where mountains never rust and tides
are made passive, put to bed by giants.
Colin Dardis is a neurodivergent poet, editor and sound artist from Northern Ireland. His work, largely influenced by his experiences with depression and Asperger's, has been published widely throughout Ireland, the UK and USA. His latest book is Apocrypha: Collected Early Poems (Cyberwit, 2022). His latest album is Funerealism (Inner Demons Records, 2022).
