Poem of the Week: ‘blue-screen’ by Richard Scott

This week, our Poem of the Week is ‘blue-screen’ by Richard Scott, from his debut collection Soho.

blue-screen
after Paul Verlaine

your grindr profile is an emoticon paradise
where camels and kittens go
dancing and flashing but I can tell they are :–(
beneath their primary colours

your preferences brag in arial bold
SINGLE / PASSIVE / NO STRINGS FUN
but they don’t like themselves
so melt back into the blue-screen

into the silent blue-screen blank and sad
that makes the emoticons dream within their
programming and code run like teardrops
C C++ sob beneath your touchscreen

Copyright © Richard Scott, 2018. Used by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. All rights reserved.

Read all our poems of the week.