Soothsayer!

Consider this a legal notice

(or sweet circle of fifths.)

Consider this something stolen from gods

(to purse lips through lines of information

perfect cadence uninterrupted by otherness.

People who sleep under bridges

with no ‘commercial value’.

We commuters are many

our spirits can be skim read

or to put it more politely

murdered in our sleep.)

Influencer!

Consider this post-content

(uploaded by midnight scholars

a serial killer whose 4 bed semi is

as clean as strawberry lemonade,

barrelling through time so fast

they became more than what language gave them.

Screen light star light, ancient statues that narrate,

convincing us we have narrative in this

post-world,

like when they ask for your opinion on the news,

we are trapped by the language they’ve given us.)

Architect!

Consider this a ransom note

(from a clustered skyline of peacocks cawing.

Bring out your dead under a

daylight moon who’s woken up too soon

who’s woken before the cameras roll

a toll to dissect its milky skin

like a spelling mistake.)

Spirit!

Consider this a bankruptcy charge

(from the people trying to get inside your head

mired in the past, before protest

in pyres of psychotic, balletic churches

muslin statues draped in dawn-fire

before kingdoms re-interpret themselves

and the ancients tick a different ballot.)

Master!

Consider this a cry for help

(from the person sitting next to you on the commute

who has a really bad feeling that

this is it.

Pre-determined, pre-beauty, pre-thought,

post-church divinations

only seen when you’re awake at 3am

with the alarm set for 6,

as you watch footage online of the moment a

woman takes her nephew out of the oven.)

Saints!

Consider this a prayer

(that when the bombs go off we’ll be downstairs

or trapped in a chat room or tangled

in the lateral shapes of gameshows and profile pics.

I can hear the post-people laughing

sending nudes to bodies hanging from bridges.

The only thing I can do is make you remember that we both exist

I accidentally rip my coat pocket trying to hold your hand.)

Lover!

Consider this

Consider me a naive finger painter

(who’s getting tired of the tram ride,

who’s never got on well with crowds,

consider me someone who’s nothing

but a person sat next to you on the commute

we are all on one, singular commute.)

The rhythm cuts out as hearts stop thumping

(so all I can hear is tap water,

strata and a sun crashing in warm water

in dreams you had before a salary

before your socials

before dogs ate dogs

before now.)

The house phone booms through the corridor

(because nobody ever calls the house phone.)

I pick it up and the caller whispers

(remember, you are mortal.)

The chord changes root,

the circle keeps spinning.

‘Anti-mind’ by Natasha Symniak is the latest in a series of poems being developed for their first ever collection. In their words –

“Being able to have a collection printed in some form or another would be amazing, it’s what every writer aims for and would be the culmination of the last 4 years of work I’ve been doing. Granted, that work hasn’t always been consistently focused on poetry in particular, but it’s more that the theme of them all together seems more clear when viewed in the context of the last four years of my life. It’s structure which enacts coherence into my narrative.

Considering that writing is something I’m so singular about, you’d have thought I would tried before. I suppose the weird thing is that I have, but it’s just never worked particularly well. I’m actually quite terrible at talking about poetry. I read it and write it and read it more but discussing it seems alien to me, wrongly so, trust me I wish it were different. All my other writing, all other kinds of art make sense to me when speaking about them, but poetry eludes me. Maybe it’s because it’s the one I’ve been doing the longest, the one whose bond to me is made up of more memory than experience, more feeling than knowledge.

I can hear myself becoming more self-indulgent as I go on. If you’re managing to bear with me then I’m very thankful.

The collection still only has working titles but it should be about 50 poems all done in a kind of grounded abstract voice. I realise that sounds counter productive, but I think it’s more about taking the lessons from all the surreal art I talk about here and processing that through a natural, narrative voice. I always wanted it to be dream-like, saturated, but to have a clear direction has also been important to me. I think It kind of sums up what I’ve always said about the interpretation of surrealism within popular culture acting as a catalyst for interplay and intertextualism between sub-genres, and a potential re-unification of abstract principles in a clear, directive voice. At least, that’s what works best for me. Believe me, If I had the guts to do straight surrealism, I absolutely would.

“all I can say for now is that I’m just sort of going with it. Usually these things work out.”

Thank you Natasha!

If you want to talk to us about potentially sharing your work, then you can get in touch either on the ‘contact’ page of this site – or by using our socials/ emailing below:

stghostycreatives@gmail.com

We’re committed to reviewing any submissions or questions on a rolling basis, however we are currently a small team working on a part time schedule which means we have a general turnaround of 3-5 days on getting back to these. Thank you for bearing with us!

(Artwork by Jaimie Volkaerts – https://artgallery.co.uk/crescent-moon-textured-blue-abstract-painting)