Looking for a saviour under the stars

Men slow then stop their cars.

Girls under street lamps stand

Waiting for their lord’s command.

Needle pricks scar their arms

Still men discern a certain charm.

Girls think of their next fix

Man moistens his dry lips.

“I seek a saviour of a kind

In the hope some inner peace I may find”

He says shuddering at her needle lines.

“Your saviour I will be

Provided you can pay my fee.

A girl must live. Love isn’t free”,

She says gazing at a distant tree.

She thinks of her girlhood not so long ago

Of trees their boughs bent under the weight of snow.

She thinks “once I could not be bought

Before hard drugs their damage rought”.

The man holds out cold hard cash

She takes it with a bitter laugh.

Stepping in through the car’s open door

She wonders if…

As many of you know, I am a poetry nerd, which is why I am incredibly excited to share The New Yorker’s new Poetry Bot.

By following the Bot on Twitter or Facebook Messenger, people can receive excerpts from different poems every day for the next three months. The poems have been chosen by The New Yorker’s poetry editor and coordinator and include works by Audre Lorde, Dorothy Parker, Joseph Brodsky, and many, many more.

To begin following the Bot, simply follow the instructions listed at The New Yorker’s post. This is a great way to discover new poets, and I’m thrilled that it exists.

And fun fact: the Bot was created by the same folks who made an interactive fortune-telling bot and the Harry Potter-esque “Sorting Bot”, which sorted followers into Hogwart’s houses using rhyming quatrains. Technology really can be grand.