Two Poems by Ben Verinder

Zagreb

Soon, we will all long for the old days.
I don’t mean when the world was scared
of us and there was only one kind of yoghurt.

I mean before the Sava knocked over the city
like an apple cart, before the tram lines buckled
and the pavements melted along Primorska and Ilica.

In the time of bees. In the time of grain and easy
travel to the summer house. When everybody
stood on the edge then pushed themselves in.

Perseids

I’m on the dead grass by the laundry block.
Planes wink in transecting arcs
and bats, touched by the courtyard lights,
pluck at the extremities of thought.

The warm air smells of bay and smoke
from coals. A hare stretches
out of the tender dark.
The meteors appear

scratch their itch of night
and just as suddenly depart.
I watch the steady passage of a satellite,
a star unfixed and always falling.

Ben Verinder holds an MA in Writing Poetry from The Poetry School and Newcastle University. His debut pamphlet, Botanicals, was published by Frosted Fire in 2021 and his second, We Lost The Birds, by Nine Pens in 2023.  His third pamphlet, How to save a river, won the 2024/5 Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year award.