Andrew Wells is a British-born poet living in New York. He is the author of two chapbooks, Sealed (Hesterglock, 2020) and Menacing Sense (Osmanthus, 2021). Johannes Görannson called Menacing Sense a "calamity game for the senses... that thrills with its relentless spasmings of scale and narrative", and the text was used as the primary source material for Slot Canyon's musical score by the same name. His work has appeared in numerous journals, most notably The Rialto, Poetry Wales, The London Magazine, and SAND Journal. He is the lead editor for HVTN Press and a tutor for the Poetry School in the UK.
Excerpt from Everything Nearly
vicars mead, ravens-
wing little by
care more rich gone down
no second fuss,
the moisture was intolerable and
suppose am
I
I
speak listen
press my knee
to my calf
fine
to make a yellow circle
when I
lift the moisture is
intolerable
I replenish
colour
coding from spring so far
suppose it was bleak midwinter shouting the daylong
nobody half dead still down tonight stone grey on scaffold grey another winter a sooner in winter the dietary changes were giving the cats diarrhea carnivourate nighttime demolitions jobs I’m sure there’s a pine around here somewhere I’ll try to find it in
the morning wind chime window calling such for sakes forgetting the name of such such dream catchers jigsaws saving the world wind chime launching otherwise rescues against what is left of glass never streaming in opt out heat of this is what a gull in a turbine sounds like but worse unclear who said so dark we could not see the ridding ourselves waking ourselves fully warm drown turn steamed eyes dry see, she has forgiven us! please lie still what in the wind saw nothing what in the wind rushes
one by one down the fort past one by one the other touching lightly another winter all nothing saw of one clutching the arm rolling away from the other touching lightly the arm for it is
a warm and substantial offering affecting no additional warmth unseasonable air has nothing to do with it,
no snow on a winter’s night is longer the various it was— quiet, quiet
it was a joke then too now the air anyway the air reprieves
a slow death for the gull anyway
morning simple to say it’s so hard to see the subtle smell of over-long boiled water level down skimmed like milk insane the page
christ
exhausted bones of doomscrolling wind to see was it time early shutter everywhere east
of the west coast
let the light’s first heave of day wherever it’s merciless
and sub zero bright,
the sky on scaffold-grey
stone hard to see squirrel grey marble dear grey
sinus bit alternative grey granite descriptors becoming themselves
it was trusting hand in hand and brief before cold
what were we missing in before our eyes
had we the pupils had. Yes. Had we? Yes. O dearly,
I do not care unquiet in parade siren by siren disappearing yesterday’s shudder
you’re serving spoon
believing as when we do my body is
a small thing then gentle cold shin kissing all I could mean of widdershins one of us
holding the sixth floor down one of us holding court against the sun the way that way worlds run on winter sky a sky blue blanket only sky
of night sky blue colour of a mood, I’m in a right mood, a real sky mood, paranoid blue
brief dash dashed through pulled shoulder width high how high a mistake
along the lines of everybody wants to be a similar height lying down along
the lines of widdershin notices not yet going the consolation into morning quiet cat by cat I woke
glued to the glue grey morning based on a splintering pine
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