(Beir Bua’s Pushcart Nominations 2021)

Unlit rooms guide my shallow steps
As conflicting thoughts echo
And give strange conversation
To my solitary mind,

Each room gives no new truth
As I stumble and lose step
Until the walls reverberate
A silence deafening-

And my sobering innocence
Is removed and that all powerful quiet
Grows to crescendo
And my faith in finding understanding-

Becomes a silent march
On into a gloaming
Where darkened trees
Act to demarcate my dying thoughts-

Along the road to a purgatory unknown.

Author Bio

Anthony R.Salandy is a mixed-race poet & writer whose work tends to focus on social inequality throughout late-modern society. Anthony travels frequently and has spent most of his life in Kuwait jostling between the UK & America. Anthony’s work has been published 80 times internationally. Anthony has 1 published chapbook titled ‘The Great Northern Journey’. Twitter/Instagram: @anthony64120

Read the rest of issue one here.