Skip to main content

jasbennett
7th November 2020

Nocturnal – Tom Branfoot

One of Manchester’s finest young poets, Tom Branfoot, explores the liminal sense of darkness in new poem ‘Nocturnal’
TLDR
Nocturnal – Tom Branfoot
Photo: Anders Jildén @ Unsplash

Leave your threshold to look
out over night-dark fields,
a sea of empty space.
Te distant mansion
glistering, all animals burrowed,
even the wood mouse we used to tend
has snook into the depths.
You fancy yourself a conjurer —
the blueing air, windborne feathers,
nightly fireworks pealing.
At dark, you search for something more.

 

Tom Branfoot is a poet from West Yorkshire, studying English and American Literature at Manchester Metropolitan University. His poems have been published in Murmur, Penny Thoughts, and Pink Trolley. His debut pamphlet will be published by Pariah Press.

‘Nocturnal’ portrays an autumnal scene reduced to darkness. It represents the liminal space in the night between possibility and emptiness. It describes the blackness outside contrasting with interior lighting,  creating ghosts and figures beyond the thin safety shield of window glass into the outside. ‘Nocturnal’ is about when tenderness vanishes with age, and people begin to grasp on anything they can.


More Coverage

Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore and Ellen Conlan Ellis’ new collaborative series for The Mancunion explores Roman mythology in a brand new way

The Moor – Freya Thomson

‘The Moor’ is a short tragedy by Freya Thomson about losing a sibling, set against the backdrop of the infamous Saddleworth Moor

Lockdown Poem – Lucy Johnson

In our final piece of lockdown writing, Lucy Johnson’s poem is a poignant piece about distance during the pandemic

Two Poems by Amatullah Hayat

Amatullah Hayat’s two poems muse on the interaction between lockdown and time