Poet of the Month (May): Morgan L. Ventura

by The Lonely Crowd

The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2025. For May, we are delighted to publish three new works by Morgan L. Ventura. The first of these, ‘Desert Talk’, is published today with two more poems to follow at the weekend. You can also listen to Morgan read the poem below.

 

 

Desert Talk

I was crossing state borders.

Tumbleweeds jumped across hot tarmac,

while dust devils danced in the distance,

licking the white vault

of heaven.

Everything screamed alive in veneration.

Thick-armed saguaros importuned

hidden gods

and opuntia bloomed neon pink fruits.

The ghost of its sweet flesh stained my tongue.

Sepia besieged me.

I feel the curse of longing, I told the desert,

whose golden void simmered miles before me.

My marriage is over.

Outside Truth and Consequences,

the desert said: But there is no love, my child,

without longing, desire already memory.

And so I went on

driving            with danger and beauty

my passengers.

 

Morgan L. Ventura is a Belfast-based poet and writer. Poems appear in Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, and Southword, among others, while essays can be found in Al Jazeera, Geist, and Best Canadian Essays 2021. Shortlisted for the 2023 Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection Award, Ventura holds an MA in Poetry from the Seamus Heaney Centre and PhD from the University of Chicago.

 

 

Photo: ‘Arizona’ by Morgan L. Ventura.

– Poet of the Month / Poetry