Franz

I'm imagining what you felt, Franz,
staring at your blood-soaked sheets,

and I'm learning the true features

of my own besotted face, etched

onto the t-shirts beneath
which I seek refuge.

And I'm turning in my grave, Franz.
Absorbed by my enemies, abhorred
by my friends,

I'm imagining my own museum:
a temple to the dead writer

that I never was.

Speakers Corner

When you stooped down
to kiss me, I turned my head
to make you miss me. And

Isn't it strange, that
I'd let my loving you ruin
this moment?

Should I Ask

It was sometime late in May,
the kids were playing basketball.
Evening had at some point sprawled
its idle self before me, casually
flicked its clouds across the roof
of all I did not ask.

Like when you bring a seashell to your ear,
is it tides of the wishful sea you hear
or mere residual notions?
Like when we plunder through our days as ghosts,
does nature feel a worthy host
to our unduly scored emotions?

See, I've thought and I've assumed,
I've even roundabout presumed
all there is to know of love.
Eyes that meet and lips that touch,
just as little, just as much
as a late May afternoon.

When before long it comes to rain,
when before long it comes to pass that
in a Kings Cross underpass, you stand up straight,
wipe your mouth, and
casually flick your clouds across the
roof of all I did not mask, should I wonder,
then should I ask?

Nadia Khomami is currently completing a Masters in Journalism at City University. As a member of the Barbican Young Poets, she can be found scribing and performing in the deepest, darkest concaves of London.Her poetry has previously been featured in several publications and exhibitions, including Little Episodes, the Woolfson & Tay Gallery, and online at Mint and Volume magazines.