lamping wild rabbits
Chalking gravestones with Dad tracing family logic ––
inscribed, fading ancestors, crumbling islands of stone.
Polaroids of people gone, re-faced for posterity,
white-powdered cheeks, dust marks death on my pants.
Both watching gravestones falling out of the colour TV,
tombs advertising AIDS cracking the mantelpiece,
Rock Hudson’s Dynasty crashing the spotlight,
those disowned corpses engraved nowhere.
Nowhere to hide, like lamping wild rabbits,
headlight executions reflecting my fear
of myxomatosis spreading, swollen-eyed deaths
of epidemic proportions discussed in armchairs
with Dad, puffing his care for island burrows.
Ravaging wild rabbits, sea kale desolated
at Prospect Cottage, like Derek. Sebastiane
and Caravaggio my celluloid palliation in VHS.
HIV –– a greater rabbit-shocked fate, but still
my gravestone stands, waiting, chiselled,
painted peacock pink.
Published in lamping wild rabbits, Simon Maddrell, Out-Spoken Press, 2026 A previous version 1st published in Throatbone, Uncollected Press, USA, July 2020
the boy and his arms
after Wilfred Owen
The boy hungers for a blood-letting
tightly drawn from famishing flesh
cartridges empty with steel sharpness
even though they leak blood & meth
he strokes out blind, blunt bullets
and longs to nuzzle the guts of lads
tracked arms show the clawed effects
like tanks bruise battle-zones & homes
fixed eyes swap in a far faraway stare
as pity lurks in curled-up fingers
teeth aren’t laughing round an apple
tears sting his burnt cheeks.
Published in lamping wild rabbits, Simon Maddrell, Out-Spoken Press, 2026
Simon Maddrell is a writer, editor & educator. He appears in Gutter, Magma, Poetry Wales, SAND, Southword, Stand, The London Magazine, The Moth, The Rialto, and Under the Radar. Patient L1 (Polari Press, 2025) is their sixth pamphlet. Simon’s debut collection is lamping wild rabbits (Out-Spoken Press, Feb 2026).