‘They Quiet Now’ & Collected Works

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, The Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.

They Quiet Now 

An aimless walk 

through empty rooms. 

Lights switched 

on then off. 

Sickly light casting 

from the clouded moon. 

A horror of mundane 

fragility and smiles. 

A shadow branch 

lingers on faded frames. 

A terror of absurd 

normality and loss. 

A floorboard cold 

under padding feet. 

An ache shaped rise 

through sinking breath. 

Kind and unkind memories, no longer haunted. 

34 and I no longer see your ghost.

Love as the land 

Love is the greatest knowing. 

Like the fullest understanding 

of your home county. 

A stumble through 

wildest bramble, finding 

yourself, the trails, 

mapped beyond adventure. 

And, in the mapping, 

boredom, disappointment, joy 

and wonderful knowing. 

Love is the changing landscape. Seasons and man’s desire, 

a constant scarring of England. The drive of felled forests, 

planted gardens, shadowed 

by towering winter clouds 

over a looming headland 

or bluebells singing 

to a quiet copse, 

new secret beginnings. 

Love is the slow and firm hand. 

The lingering touch 

that has nothing to find new, 

but shivers in the ground 

made rich and familiar by time. 

The tracing, skimming fingers 

standing hairs on end 

like sheets of sunflowers 

fielded towards eternity. 

Love is as the land, somehow possessed and unpossessable by its nature. Love is as the land, forever shaped and shaping all of its wretched creatures.

Bournemouth in the rain 

Rain on the cold hard road, but soft clouds. Tyres on the rain, but still the widening sky. Naked trees lining, as if to grasp at stars with fingers that once held a babe. 

This land was once a garden, a lawn. This land was once a terraced garden, massive. 

In every crack is every event lived, every drop of drowning water and mother’s milk, lived. In the dull reflection of tarmac is the night, and in the night a car embedded into a fence. This town was once a haven, a future. This town was once a terraced heaven, infinite. 

The dark comes quickly now, its seasonal quickening blanketing the unhoused souls. Grey looming offices with yellow eyes fight with the memories of beer on breath. This road was once a bottle, suckled. This road was once a terraced bottle, murderous.

Men from the south 

Have you ever visited 

a Provence hilltop village? 

The immovable time? 

Menerbes say? 

Stained with wine and sun? 

There you will often find a plaque, 

hot to the touch, 

listing the resistance fighters, 

young and virile, 

who traveled north across the newly made border to fight tyranny and miss 

their sweethearts. 

Now, blonde Englishmen 

roam in linens 

to stay cool 

and drink their ancestors 

dry while marveling at the beauty 

and silence of the quaint arable land. 

How strange to feel the echoes so clearly yet be so detached. 

How privileged we are to walk the cobbles laid by hands long cold. 

To quaff the wine, flagged red and white beneath eternal blue. 

To cook like suckling bacon, oblivious and fumbling our french.

James Richard Walls is a poet from Dorset, UK known for his explorations of alcoholism, nature, death, his father, love, and longing. He began writing and performing at university while studying English and Philosophy. During this time he organised and performed at stage poetry events with the late Benjamin Zephaniah. His recent writing is heavily inspired by Jack Gilbert, Ocean Vuong and Sharon Olds. If not out on the Dorset hills you can find him on Instagram at @wallstonej.