John F Keane
Stockport, Cheshire, United Kingdom

John F Keane has published both prose and poetry in a number of science fiction magazines, including Analog and Daily Science Fiction. In an academic capacity, he has also written about the social prototyping potential of science fiction in such prestigious management journals as Emergence and The International Journal of Advertising.

Date poem was written 18th June 2020

 

The Sleeping Exhibition

 

In the forsaken gallery

Our exhibition sleeps as

Public grass grows wild

Sprouting strong in silence

Through untended parks

Across footloose spaces

And in suburban lozenges

Enfolding bursting trees

Through lockdown days

Under skies like brass

But even brighter still

From cold to summer

 

Snatched from us like

A dream by morning

Across unknown days

Our exhibition sleeps

A bridge of words and art

Spanning pandemic days

Unwitnessed yet recalled

Blooming in memory

Like childhood gardens

Orient and everlasting

Branded on innocence

In colours not to fade

 

Amidst cautious streets

The exhibition sleeps

On alabaster walls

Behind memorial doors

Dreaming of itself

In endless interplays of

Pigment and metaphor

Rhythm and paintwork

Line and enjambment

Until the moving call

Of life conspires to

Waken it from rest.