Stuart C Flynn

The outside world was once so far away,

but now my screens are full of wounded life,

as if towns on maps cry out and bleed

while brightly painted robots dance

to the pounding beat of history.

My neighbours might as well be stones that dream;

only the blazing fringes seem real

and not the calm, familiar centre.

I am a sea pulled by two moons, stretched

between my memories of places

that no longer exist, or never did,

and AI-generated stories –

ideograms signifying emptiness

pasted over an abyss of silence –

or, rather, one of those captive moons

torn apart by the planet’s gravity.

Published in Belfast Review