BOB FERN - POEMS

Bob Fern is a professor of translational neurobiology who lives in Plymouth England. This year he has published or had accepted for publication pieces in Between the lines press, The Fortnightly Review, Isacoustic, Blue Unicorn and the Chiron Review. Other than that, his publication record is purely academic. 

Repeat ​

Heaven help the sleepers 
in pressed linins; 
night horrors rumble 
from the shadows that 
pool. Best intentions 
ease the weight, 
muscles fatigue and small shifts  
build ‘till breaking out; 
fruiting bodies of threads 
that stretch in all the soils. 
We pushed too far, for 
all our history knowledge 
we repeat, repeat, repeat.

​

​Ouroboros

In the end, chewing and gnawing,  
wearing its teeth, 
the Ouroboros, food-sleepy,  
rolled like a penny  
back through the world, 
to the tale that first dangled  
worm-like before it.  

​

The early years ​

The antelope got spooked by the disco lights,  
crashed the mirror wall out to the savanna. 
The hairy sloth coiled down the dance pole,  
click-clicked to the latrine. 
I machete-ed a face slit to expose my teeth, 
she doesn't need one, she has no skin. 
 
We confront the hippopotamus, 
he sprayed into our glasses. 
Braying zebra forced us closer, 
there is a distinct stridulation. 
Army ants crawl over his raw muscles;  
I slipped tail ‘round her waist, samba-ed to the floor. 
…............... 
Look- she said,  
emptied salt into her mouth.  
I can do that, and crushed an onion into pulp on my tongue.  
She took the starters melon, 
released it floating to the ceiling.  
I made orzo from my own finger nails, 
crumbled tooth sugar over the grapefruit halves.   
We looked at the wine; we looked,  
then they arrived. 
…................. 
I coughed feathers, 
curled round the nappy bin, 
wrestling its fearsome jaws apart.  
She took a loop round the light fitting 
and two-footed the onesie draw open.  
We trailed our hands luxuriously  
through the cool terry cotton.  
The lugubrious ape sauntered heavily in. 
We whistled and looked at the ceiling. 
A single bee came through the window 
and on inhalation, went down the pipe. 
We paddled lie-lows before the telly, 
wriggling toes; the ceiling fell and concussed, 
I dreamed of ape after ape after ape. 
 

​

Two years more ​

Winter shifts nervous; 
the watcher, sallow with loss,  
looking askance, sidling. 
Seeds crack and suck  
in the first confused lightening. 
He settles deeper,  
grinds his buttocks,  
sagging heavy with bloat;  
freeze burns exposed flesh  
and rot eats the heart out of hope.

​

​Canines

I urge them on, but  
dogs always linger; 
they will sprint, but 
not when required; 
stand and sniff, or 
bark at unthreatening 
things. I clap them 
and they saunter along,  
the condescension total. 
Walking briskly past and 
they may follow, but finding 
myself through the bend 
I return. A jangled leash 
gets tongue lolling irony and  
decent to the forbidden stream.  
Yelling is counterproductive and 
crying pointless. I surge in 
and scruff each like a grocery bag,  
worried looks from better  
owners than me. I smile cheerily. 
They lick the seat leather,  
hungry, as we all three shiver 
in the car. I start it for heat 
but where am I to take them, 
with the fuel near gone.