A Poetry Showcase from Edward Lee

WAITING, FOR THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO DO

We are all
going to live forever,
until we don't,

that's life
in a nutshell,

says the drunk man
at the bar, who arrived 
four drinks
after I got here,

who will leave
before I do,

long before.

We are all going to live forever,
until we don’t, and as I signal
the barman for another drink
I don’t want, but so desperately need,
I order one for the drunk man,
nod my head and raise my glass
as he says thanks, his eyes
not on my face but on something
just over my shoulder, something
in the deadened darkness
of a pub in the empty hours
of a winter’s day.

THE ENDING IS EVERYTHING

A lifetime of rain
has left our skins wet,
our clothes disintegrating
when we undress, if
we bother to undress
or simply fall into our beds
sleep claiming us
before our bodies still.

Someday the sun
might rise
and our skins will dry,
shrinking us down
to a size more manageable
than the bloated beings 
we have become
simply by living as we live,
all the better
for the world to drown us
when the rains come again,

as they will.
as they always do,
the ending of everything
the only guarantee worth believing

HISTORY

With wounds that wouldn’t close
he died for the lies
of stupid men, never once 
opening his mouth
to give his side
of their story,
or even to beg
for mercy.

Too clever
to save himself,
he let ignorance
silence his heart,
its last beats barely vibrating
its tired shape.

And now the men
who would call themselves leaders,
call themselves the only chance
of any tomorrow, they
are looking for 
someone new
to hang, someone new to die
so they themselves
can live on beyond history.

THE YEARS AHEAD ARE LESS THAN THE YEARS BEHIND

Ants surround my bed
like an honor guard
or a deathwatch,
I can't be sure which,
the ants without voice
to tell me their aim,
the life I've led
deserving both,
though I know some people
might disagree, but
none of them are here,
it is only the ants,
their stillness like a shout
in an empty room,
their possible movement
like a held breath, the realisation
that they are not really ants
still some unknowable time away.

BURNING

We press our faces
against the glass,
the distant fires
attracting our eyes
even as we doubt their reasons
for existing, until we pass through,
the glass not breaking,
our skin untouched, as smooth
as it has ever been, though, perhaps,
drier than it should be,
the world through the window
now just the world, the home
we did not treat as a home
and yet one
we have spent 
several selfish lifetimes building.



Short Bio: Edward Lee's poetry, short stories, non-fiction and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen, The Blue Nib, Fevers Of The Mind and Poetry Wales.  His play ‘Wall’ received a rehearsed reading as part of Druid Theatre’s Druid Debuts 2020. 
He also makes musical noise under the names Ayahuasca Collective, Orson Carroll, Lego Figures Fighting, and Pale Blond Boy.
His blog/website can be found at https://edwardmlee.wordpress.com