The Lonely Crowd will feature new work by a different poet each month throughout 2026. For August, we are delighted to publish three new works by Rachel Burns. The first of these, ‘Somewhere we are fifteen, dancing at the pub disco‘, is published today with two more poems to follow throughout the month. 

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Somewhere we are fifteen, dancing at the pub disco

 

I mean not dancing

headbanging

under heavy DJ lights

glittering disco ball

we were always stealing

and cadging

remember that time Scotty

caught you

drinking his pint?

 

Oh God, Kat

I thought he was gonna           kill you

 

the hours it took

to get hair metal ready

back combing curls

with the Afro comb

spraying with Silvikrin

until the room misted over

drinking the not-quite-ready

elderberry wine from demijohns

and raiding the bathroom cabinet

for Mam’s codeine

tipping loose change from the Toby Jug

 

and remember how we

cleared the sticky dancefloor

of those necking couples

smooching to Lady in Red

how we begged the DJ

to play Whole Lotta Rosie

that opening power chord

wanna tell you a story                                   

we both had stories

you      your dead dad

mine    very much alive

 

we lived for the disco night

at the Crook Hotel

it was like we knew

how it would all pan out

like ominous music

in a Hitchcock film

 

a score of crows gathering

on the jungle climbing frame

 

Rachel Burns has been published in literary magazines including The Rialto, Magma, Atrium, and Ink Sweat & Tears. She won the Bylines Sky Hawkins Poetry Prize in 2025. Her first poetry collection is forthcoming from Broken Sleep Books in 2026.

Photo: ‘Doors’ by Maeve McKenna.