Before Gravity’s Pull by B F Jones and David Cranmer

B F Jones, David Cranmer, Mashup, Poetry

I pull back from enforced darkness as
yellow rays from the lantern skip on
cobblestones, the street is too quiet
now as I paint a reflective past of a
time and place where you walked as a
god across my terrace, into my cafe

Materialising before
Me
Claiming the twilight and brightening the night
Sitting, sipping the drink I took to
You
Lips on the edge of a perspiring glass
Eyes on the horizon, on everything and
nothing,
On mine.

And the night slipped away
Giving way to numbered days

When the sun shone on a smiling you
When your laughter shattered the odds
Before gravity’s pull became apparent
Before our plans were ripped away.

I was thinking of you today, times past.

Summer evening, 1947 by David Cranmer and B F Jones

B F Jones, David Cranmer, Mashup, Poetry

A quiet evening with you, on the veranda,
Light illuminating your golden hair.
You in that tube top and gazing down
Smoldering flame. Smoldering out,
Til all that remained were dark skies
To keep company with memories of you.

A quiet evening with you, hot air waltzing,
stale look in your dirt brown eyes.
And in your mouth, words you no longer mean.
The burning light of longing having slowly
tarnished, a flicker growing ever faint,
Since that first morning, after.

“No Line for a Common Thread” by David Cranmer

Beat To A Pulp, David Cranmer, Poetry

“No Line for a Common Thread”

Talk

Small talk

Surface talk

“How’s the weather?”

“What a sweet baby!”

“Nice to see you again!”

Temporary exchanges

Signifying little to nil

Just daily superfluous asides

Make up a shared human experience

Make for a distinct human misery

For those who find socializing hard

Talk equals emotional dread

No line for a common thread

Riding the slow train to

Pull the right words but

Falling short and

Left wanting

To fade

Out.

BIO: David Cranmer is the editor of the BEAT to a PULP webzine and whose own body of work has appeared in The Five-Two: Crime Poetry Weekly, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, LitReactor, Macmillan’s Criminal Element, and Chicken Soup for the Soul. His forthcoming poetry collection, Dead Burying the Dead Under a Quaking Aspen will be released by Close to The Bone (December, 2021). He’s a dedicated Whovian who enjoys jazz and backgammon. He can be found in scenic upstate New York where he lives with his wife and daughter.

2 Poems by David Cranmer

Beat To A Pulp, David Cranmer, Poetry

Hangman

I leave them hanging,

nothing to say.

An inattentive friend,

nothing to do

with them.

Why not then

erase limbs, body, head

—and scaffolding.

No more games.

I wish I may, I wish I might

But can’t, truths

aren’t welcome. So I don’t answer

texts, return calls, and I leave

them on the gallows,

with nothing to say.

Whither Are We Drifting?

From my bedroom window I see

a poplar tree in the stronghold of a

thick, brown vine spiraling up its trunk.

I pour another ounce of brandy into my

morning cup of coffee, and wonder if

the tree is fine with a slow demise, too.

BIO: David Cranmer is the editor of the BEAT to a PULP webzine and whose own body of work has appeared in such diverse publications as The Five-Two: Crime Poetry Weekly, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, LitReactor, Macmillan’s Criminal Element, and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Under the pen name Edward A. Grainger he created the Cash Laramie western series. He’s a dedicated Whovian who enjoys jazz and backgammon. He can be found in scenic upstate New York where he lives with his wife and daughter.