So it’s you at the perimeter. All
your voices should not let you in. Several
tongues mean nothing to me but still they call
with their forms of persuasion. They never
gave you the key to this enclosure. When
other means began to fail and I spoke
strangely and my body did not serve, then
you stopped coming. Still I could feel the hate
and I said to the keeper, let me out
though freedom is a place where bones are white
for the large scape is parched and in my doubt
are fissures dreamt enough to fall in. Give
me your hand. I can still reach. Sound the last
hour yet make a future from the past.
— Alan Dunnett has a collection from Graft Poetry out next year. A chapbook, Snuff One’s Glim, was published by Livor Mortis Zine 2024. Wrote and cast Assassin, which received a 2020 Best Rhythm & Poetry award for Berlin Deadline at Berlin Underground Film Festival. Wrote/voiced the film-poem Interrogation, Best Experimental Film at the Verona International Film Festival 2019. A collection, A Third Colour, was published by Culture Matters in 2018. Has appeared in Acumen, London Grip New Poetry, Dark Poets Club, Ink Sweat & Tears, Across The Margin, The New European.