Fallen Glories was written around the same time as I was writing a first novel. The poem starts with a rumination upon incompletion, then moves into thoughts arriving at bitterness and frustration both within a place and a body in which one cannot escape. I have blended both the fictional character and the autobiographical into a poem about disenchantment, envy and always needing a crutch.

Mark G. Pennington has poems in TL;DR and PoetrySuper Highway and is soon to appear in Poetry Pacific, The Oddville Press, Futures Trading and Scarlet Leaf Review. He has also published a first book of poems titled Lithium Clockwork under the pen name J. Rose.

The tricksy coffee
table, The unfinished
novels. A loquacious one
below:
You can't forget to
take your pills.

Market stalls with
the stench Of rotting bone.
Lips pursed like a
lamprey, Moving as a
fisherman's casket, Amongst the feral,
Unbroken sea.


Melting in the
sunshine Or the glory of
rain, Where the roses
hang like Sweet-hearts.
Not poor solemn
carpentry.

Insouciance, I'll
never understand. Time was invisible
And unending,
I will lean against
the wine.