"The Tele-vision"

A poem by Maria Henry.

born to the flashing lights,

my eyes are red and blue

I see life in a dimension

of technicolour wilderness

the flash of the screen

plays endlessly

in the darkness

and awakens my mind

the box, the void

the leak between us

spurs reality

into a wilting oblivion

my hand upon the screen,

the static pushes back,

is there somebody there?;

are you watching me too?

the antenna spikes madness

its waves flow in my consciousness

I am alive again, in red and in blue

do you see the man that appears at five

I ask him questions;

but He does not respond

the omnipotent visionary

I pray to him

he tells me to

I know not why

he leaves at six;

so I wait for the next five

when he will come back

and swallow me into his void

I dream of him,

but as you know well,

behind the screen

my god is

nothing

but colour

and

b r o k e n

u p

l i n e s

Maria Henry is a soon-to-be graduate of a Creative Writing MSc at the University of Edinburgh. Though she now resides in the land of bagpipes and loch-monsters, she is originally from a tiny little village (with a very strange name) over in England. She was the recipient of the 2021 Grierson Verse Prize and has had her work published in numerous independent publications. You can follow her antics, and see some less formal word-making over on Twitter @mariaisirl