ORCHID

Little angel
With your diamond crown
Bridal veil
Pink slippers lurid
Adder’s mouth
Resupine
All wanton inflorescence
Labellum swollen fused
In vanilla inner whorl
I will melt you will cry
And down among the coral-roots
Between the leopards and the swans
The mirrors scorpions jewels and ghosts
Our column conjoins our clade

UNTITLED

Post-rain softness brings
Grackles down to yank up worms
Somehow unbroken.

RELICT

The slick-black-glassy basalt,
Betrays a flipper’s hesitance,
Recoiling at gravity’s swift assault,
His blubber shudders on the precipice,
And in the pregnant, pendant
Moment, bulbous panicked eyes
Never were so prescient,
As, scrabbling tragically he slides
Into breathless air to land
With unechoed thud, an instant husk,
Lifeless on the rocky oil-black strand
With his jagged stump of shattered tusk-
A broken vein to a simpler time-
A world where walruses need not climb.

Though from Scotland originally, Steve has travelled widely, especially in Africa, and currently lives in El Salvador with his family.

Steve’s poem, “Raphael” has been nominated by Ariel Chart for the 2020 Pushcart Prize. ‘Plum Tree Tavern’, Grand Little Things’, Oddball Magazine and ‘Indian Periodical’ have also published work from Steve’s new collection, Cuarentena, and poems have also been accepted for future publication at ‘Founder’s Favourites’ and ‘BeznCo’.