Caelan Scott

About the author

Caelan lives in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, with their partner and shih tzu, Nova. Currently a year into a PhD researching the use of pressure technology in diabetes, Caelan is a lover of science, art and poetry and everything it touches; from ancient stories and folklore, film, to the exploration of space. Autism helps to make these interests unavoidable, and problematic! At times.

"The Night Talks" explores the world after dark, when what we know for certain, our beliefs, our hopes and fears merge. "Packing my records for Mars" is a science fiction & fantasy poetry collection, that will be released on 1st April, 2025. All internal artwork and book covers are done by the author, who wants to make the most of dabbling in art and an Adobe subscription they can't cancel.

Caelan is also currently working on a science fiction horror novel, loosely inspired by their upcoming poetry collection “Packing my records for Mars”.

The Hill-dweller

The human on the hill-top amasses the world's wealth

in big hands, cupping love, real, false,

sieving out the lumps,

greedy, unneeded.

The hill-dweller says:

Kindness can fix the world,

and we laugh: Kindness never fixed anything.

And why is that?

The hill-dweller asks: why is that?

In those big hands there are many colourful rocks

and hearts, virile—if eaten, makes us volatile with obsession,

makes liars of delicious apathy,

appropriate passivity,

we're masters of the ordinary

and disdainful of the kind.

The hill-dweller keeps sieving the clay soil, rooting

for seeds of empathy, convinced there's a planet's worth.

Looking for some more words?

We ask, scornful, running up the hill, out of breath,

eager to push the hill-dweller off,

but loving hands hold on. Another prayer to give, hill-dweller?

Another thought to spare?

But loving hands hold on.

-The Night Talks

Starsmen

In the predictable dry of the early morning,

before the island should wake up,

come to me, nameless angel,

like you so easily visited old men in the Bible.

I care not which route you take,

if you are falling down or climbing up,

your allegiance, I’m afraid, means little to me,

I no longer know which side I’m on.

I’ll even dig a hole in the cellar to make it easier.

I’ll take your sunburned wings and douse them

with oil or whatever it is divine creatures need.

You don’t have to say a word, fix this life I’ve wasted,

it means more now that someone answered.

So send me your weakest soldier, I’m not fighting

anymore.

The time for remedy atrophied,

chance was the frost that never came,

and my life grew unbound, unchecked,

like the conifers in the garden no one planted.

I just need something ethereal to appear,

unaligned and non-judgmental.

I’ll wear sunglasses if your visage would sear me

and turn away should you be disfigured.

I presume that the fall left you, angel, injured.

Why do you summon a demon to your kitchen?

you ask as I pour you a glass of water,

since you seem to be on fire.

After all the whispered pleas on bended knees

and all this quickened time,

as the world spun, and I lost my grip,

I watched as the snow came far too early,

it smothered my patience and brought the flu,

and it killed my lover, you’re unamused.

Frailty, I know not why he loves you all so much,

you croon, adding acid to the flames

you lick into my house.

I’m not looking for answers or to raise the dead,

and I suppose you look confused,

yet unsurprised, that you have met another

as worn out and guileless, forgotten by the sky.

I’ve invited a powerful fool to sit at my table,

maybe he wishes I was a beautiful, hopeful virgin

whilst he questions my sense, and just how

I managed to call a demon for no reason.

Well, you had better tell me what it is you desire,

your tone tastes of salt and sex

and impatient curiosity.

I wish I had something tempting to offer

or a tale as windy and treacherous

to compare to your long, strange life,

but I have no true purpose really.

I didn’t have the energy to bend tonight

and make false promises to the light.

The conifers kept growing as I slowed,

and I brush the path so rarely now.

I’ve truly become idle in my grief

and irritated even by you, angel.

Come on, you say, and your eagerness burns a little

like you forgot how to question

but I’m no stranger to curious things.

and I’ve run out of prayers for the star's men.

-The Night Talks

Coyotes

Nestled inside the dry rivers of this empty canyon,

there was a city inside you but now there's none.

As the sun is setting and your volcano is aching,

I can hear coyotes in your dusky streets.

Listening in the distance from my mountainous perch

to echoing music that salts the earth,

as beating drums fade into the icy night,

I can hear coyotes in your dusky streets.

The uninterrupted sky spread with a thousand lights

and a forgotten city that rests dead in the sand,

as rocks roll through ancient neighbourhoods,

I can hear coyotes in your dusky streets.

-The Night Talks

Caelan Scott

The night talks

About the author

The Night Talks

some poetry

The Sky Maiden

The Hill-dweller

Starsmen

Coyotes

Support the author

inside the night talks

NEW RELEASES

upcoming

packing my records for mars

join the reader list

Interested in poetry, books, film & television?

Contact the author

info@caelanscott.com

Send a note

The night talks

About the author

The Night Talks

some poetry

The Sky Maiden

The Hill-dweller

Starsmen

Coyotes

Support the author

inside the night talks

NEW RELEASES

upcoming

packing my records for mars

Social

join the reader list

Interested in poetry, books, film & television?

Contact the author

info@caelanscott.com

Send a note

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