‘The New Romantics’

Matthew McCain is an author and fine artist with 3 of his novels reaching the top #10 on Amazon Kindle Unlimited. His paintings can be found all around the world from London to Las Vegas with Bar Rescue’s Jon Tafer and Alice Cooper’s Teen Youth Rock Center in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s currently represented by the Bilotta Gallery in Florida.

The New Romantics

these new hearts of stone
this lonesome
everything
we share an intellect,
in our minds,
we would have been great, what with
what fresh hell,
what with wanting
to know us only

we can’t
we must dream
all it was was darkness strewn across an empty
superhighway
we used to be linked to one another
we used to tell secrets to the night
it couldn’t keep

so now it’s a finished work
called cruel blessing
now it’s an animatronic dream of us
whatever we say seems tethered
to the new romantic
to the frozen surface of the lake
what colors of winter
what absence of breath

or sour or some other flavor
of the new romantic
in downy robes, will always think of summer
how to be auctioned-off in a prize contest
how a little bit of a heart can be bitten off and chewed
as a reflection, as a reflection
of the times

S. A. Viau holds an MFA in poetry from Louisiana State University. He is the winner of the 2019 William Jay Smith Award for Poetry, judged by Douglas Kearney. His work has appeared in The Hong Kong Review of Books, The Colorado Review, HASH, New Delta Review, among others. He lives in Maryland with his family.