Ornamental Destruction



Unfailing, the gull sun towers dry and crested
where the dumb funeral parts the taste
of acrid wounds. A climatic heart once kenneled,
crawls into the mammilla of a prayers sorry domain.

Sorrow, south easterly. Solitary. For the heed
of this proud woman, cleaning each calendar
relic carefully. Tinctured in a jagged thirst.
Sunday's wrist dulled in earth's sombre mercy.

The ornamental destruction. The unshaved
under belly of the clock ticking spring.
Arms of the turrets sundering their poison thunder.

Following the locust scribe of the wintry thief,
only beginning it's unending decay of the bloody
fuse. Death in a grin, drains hungrily into her breast.


Barabus Shadow



Darkness hustling in the watching of me.
Appetite of melancholy, deep in thumb prints
of candle wax. Black shaded, torn Bible,
of field kissing and pitiless announcements.

Holy. Quiet. Accepting. Familiar breath
of midnight filled with abandon. Such ages.
Such long and threshing centuries' sleep
in the bloody colour of her hair.

She rests, stronger than death. Bolder
than a sickle's blade. Closed. Exposed.
Truth tortured to the purest element
of its function. Too close to extinction.

I am upon her shoulder, drumming in the eye
of a crow. Holding up the guts of inspiration.
The devoured son. The weeping grin of Goya.
These hours do not belong to us anymore.

I am the worm resting in deep and feathery
soil, turning the screws of oaken flinders.
To gnaw endless at the belly of her undying
grief. Soon fattened to the peak of her.

Who killed that sullen dictation? Glistening
from one mosaic grave stone to the next;
Barabbas shadow in river of its Christ.
Brighter, lower. Vatican pure.


Untold Distance



The child's head rapidly descended. Mouth wrinkling
brittle at the slip of creation. Combing history nowhere
and everywhere. A damp stillness of Bible. Pinned with names.
An untold distance. It's lonely singing foundering in blood.

A nerve bulged with struggles, with earth's weightless liberty.
Perished issue, torn of light. Slumped in bunting of hay.
Womb crumpled, muzzled in bolting torment. One gulp.
Psalm air flinched, as midnight staggered over life's empty rage.

Gullet bronzed with a scream that cleaned no ear. Child flouted.
Rendered forever glorious in the warmth of waiting. Heather eyes
dimmed in one concluding shadow. Half-illumined. Conscripted.

Kingdoms empty. Interior of earth, left feasting on the moon.


Dan Miles was born in London but moved to Essex by the age of six. Thus he is most at home amongst the meadows and countryside, and the connection to bucolic surroundings has influenced his evolution as a writer. Miles studied the visual arts for a period of time in 2000/2001; study that only reinforced his connection to poetry. While many have influenced his writing, his first great source of inspiration was the work of the Poet, Arthur Rimbaud, closely followed by Ted Hughes, with whom he shares the close connection to nature. He has been published in, The Gloom cupboard, Osprey and Eviscerator Heaven and his poetry is also forthcoming in Eleutheria.