PS Cottier

Sand cycle

The sand stretches,
flexes its muscles,
and I am stuck, Goya’s dog,
pulled down,
waking in a different world.
Another world of sand.
I shake and try to pull myself
to a firmer edge. There is no edge,
and I suffocate, and wake again,
stranded, lungs filling, sinking.
I am trapped in an hourglass,
never emptying, dry drowning,
reborn on repeat, reversed
Sisyphus on the beach,
with ten million tiny rocks
pushing into ears and mouth and nose —
feldspar and silica and an
endless choke of grinding quartz.

PS Cottier

Well that’s a miserable poem for my first on the blog for 2025! Many people have had nightmares about being trapped, or suffocating, and this poem attempts to capture that feeling of dread.

In more cheerful news, another review of The Thirty-one Legs of Vladimir Putin, a novella co-written by NG Hartland and myself can be found here. The reviewer is Tim Jones.

(Illustration by Thomas Rowlandson)