Tom Branfoot: Two Poems

Natural Phenomena

Missed the electrical storm the day you fled
muled with blue carrier bags to the fields
no identification             bottles clinking like cowbells
arborescent blisters in an obscure sky

Economists argue there's beauty in recession
a scold of jays delineate the copse
car music clamouring beneath nightmares
streaming in the astrolabe

                                         Missed the blue moon
to sickness and heat lightening
natural phenomena elude the social womb
too combative    a wall primed for projection
obtunded by nominal moons

Eyes open like mussels, histories of flux clinging
to unopened shells         It's getting dark

Future Pending

an   orrery   of   jackdaws  circle   overhead.   pylons
crackle   after   pelting   rain.   it   was   decided  the
rhizomes    of    shame     unman     me    in     dusk's
jurisdiction.  not  much is revealed  until  the  host's
cat  delivers  you  the  shredded  jelly of an  internal
organ.   we've    weathered   so   much    uncertainty.
without a roof to call our own. it used to rain inside
that kitchen with the persistence of history.  we live
today   in   the   hills   half a  vertex   from  flooding.
wrought  iron  horns  protect  thresholds. sobs  spin
through thickets. our own private folk horror.

Tom Branfoot is a poet and critic from Bradford, and the writer-in-residence at Manchester Cathedral. He won a Northern Debut Award for Poetry in 2024 and the New Poets Prize 2022. He organises the poetry reading series More Song in Bradford. Tom is the author of This Is Not an Epiphany (Smith|Doorstop) and Boar (Broken Sleep Books), both published in 2023.