Our Primordial Nightmare

If you can’t change the person, change their shape,
cloister a kitty to reveal its make;
flash the scud: splice the need to touch the breaks.

Was she worth the time to resuscitate?
That clod flashed and gave himself an earache.
If you can’t change the person, change their shape.

Shaking hands sever her head from its nape.
We can’t all eat that lucid, sticky cake;
flash the scud: splice the need to touch the breaks.

Hued words rattle their bars till they reshape.
It’s all just fun and games; her face’s opaque.
If you can’t change the person, change their shape;

indite milky, creamed eyes that’ll aid escape.
Grate that face down till even the bones flake;
flash the scud: splice the need to touch the breaks.

Catch the moment and let’s videotape:
hurry, pummel that sponge while she’s awake.
If you can’t change the person, change their shape;
flash the scud: splice the need to touch the breaks.

Rhea Seren Phillips is a PhD student at Swansea University. She is studying how Welsh poetic forms and metre could be used to reconsider, engage and accurately represent the changing cultural identity of modern Wales. She has been published in Molly Bloom, Cheval 10, Cultured Vultures, Writing Times and The Conversation. She runs Grandiloquent Wretches, a Patreon page that combines poetry, art and audio. Read other articles by Rhea Seren.