Author: Ben Preston

Ben Preston is a poet washed up in London’s Somers Town. He’s worked as a bartender, factory operative, diamond controller, dabbled in philosophy and dropped out of everything. He’s starting again. He’s using the skills he’s developed in creative writing to forge a new life and a new identity.

Under the Overcast

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Under the Overcast

Subdued, I sit under electric light.
The sky is leaden with rain in the afternoon.

A heaviness tethers me,
the moment disowned
by a vagueness unknown.

I see a sombre city outside the window.
A glow diffused by dour cloud,
blue-grey unloading slowly.

Then my eyes shift to where
rivulets run on glass,
catching brightness under the overcast,
like tiny sharp suns lit.

And it seems that
if hope is focused there is a wakening somehow.

Church Bells

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Church Bells

The lamp throws fuzzy shadows
high on these walls, ceiling.
Lonely, unscrupulous,
the borders of my room.
The duvet that falls across my shoulder
and this crumpled pillow
are like snow that covers roots.

Church bells in the London dark.
They mark gradations until midnight.
Circling quarters recircling.

Earthly prayer
winged mechanism
fragmented
sung blind.