Poetry
Oubliette
I painted the light out of Christ
now I’ve broken the night’s code
gutted the Gospels at a stroke
reduced to a single cell
I’m a swan carved in stone
held fast by a lamp-black sea
flogging rocks in the throat
of a world that gagged on me
mortal morsel restless corpse
I engrave my own funeral
on the guts of the earth
only intermittently alive
if ever I see a square of sky
I’ll be another Lazarus
waiting to rise
Note: In 1607 Caravaggio was imprisoned for a month in the notorious underground guva at
Malta’s Fort St Angelo for assaulting another Knight until he escaped with the help of an
unknown accomplice.
Julian Bishop
Julian Bishop’s first collection of eco poems called We Saw It All Happen was published in 2023 by Fly On The Wall Press. A former environment journalist turned poet, he lives in Barnet with his family and dog and runs a small media company. He’s worked for many years as both reporter and producer with the BBC and also on ITV’s News At Ten. He’s been widely published and also been runner-up in the International Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry. He’s currently working on a follow-up collection of eco poems as well as a separate project about the life and times of the Italian painter Caravaggio.