Image: Joe Bradley, Untitled from 5 Lithographs, 2015

Elden Morrow is a recent graduate from the University of Birmingham – BA in English with Creative Writing – and is returning there to do an MA. He loves poetry and music that always appears to withhold something – lyrics that use understatement or humour to mask the speaker’s true mood or thoughts. This poem by Elden also appears in the inaugural print issue of Porridge which is available for purchase here.

Quiet (reprise)

Cigarettes in the bathtub are a lean, mean cure for the blues,
the porcelain smoke sits above the water
but it’s a shame for the plughole
to smell of ash.

You smoked a lot before you shipped off, anything to keep off
the weight you said. Those were the days
when empathy rose early
in the morning.

These days my watch alarm beeps at twelve midnight without fail.
I don’t know how to adjust it and it never
fails to wake me. It’s getting
rather tiresome.