Because I know not where I end,

Because I dare not will.


Picture,

A hemisphere in hospice care.

Up on the mantle,

(No, by the window sill?)

To scry my worth within a pavement stare,

The cracks in slabs withhold my will.


A play pretend comet, for us to drop,

Where we are slideshow things, conveyor things.

Veneers of citrus hops and coffee shops. 

And waking breaks in nettle stings.


Where I yearn, with all, to hold a graze,

To take you in the crash of waves:

Just foam stains of a silent sea - 

Their echo left belongs to me.


(This whole,

‘I – I’,

‘Me – Me’,

Well, what else is left to be?)


Fingers on mesh, a Tantalus in Furs,

I lay it all in one whisper:


What taste of fruit you grace, to me belongs –

So, let it turn to ash upon my tongue.

May your warmth falter at my touch, 

The palate-hint lingers enough.


For presence: love, stupor, sorrow;

All drift, each a passing tipple.

Along the deep trac’ed furrow,

Your shape alone may fill.


For you to say, ‘That’s nice. How nice.’

Each indulgence, as flesh on ice.


Because I know not where I end,

Because I dare not will.


Because I know not what to be,

(Yet make the call to raise)

A bivouac upon that silent sea.

How could you, in one whisper

Contend with such salted vigour?


For life in this cataract stare,

Is love packaged in brine.

The cracks in slabs still care

For what pretence left is mine.


This whole,

‘I – I’,

‘Me – Me’,

Well, what else is left to be?



A. D. Lance is an Edinburgh-based poet. Educated in Theology and Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, he blends Romantic lyricism with a modern disquiet, drawing influence from figures like Byron, Baudelaire, and Philip Larkin—who once wrote, “Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.” Lance’s poetry echoes that sentiment: tracing the contours of chronic pain, stagnation, and thwarted desire with a voice that is both bruised and formal, restrained and ornate. Irony and longing are his poetry’s meat and wine—nourishing a body of work where beauty is the end of peace. He’s also a musician for the alt-rock band AXIS.