With the Wise One
You enjoy your work. I see that.
Time sings when you pull on your weights: ice
sparks and the monster stirs. Is it true
that tincture of wasp would straighten
my spine? Today, my throat is splintered. Give me
some oil, I beg you. There was a woman in the river,
another one. Sorry I was slow to get there.
I know you need the parts. I wish I were a monk
because God is nothing to do with things.
When He sleeps on the seventh day, I’d sleep with Him,
unafraid. Now show me your alchemy. I want
to break something again and yet I want to be good.
I will kiss your feet. Stroke me. Understand
I am gnashing my teeth. Make me inhale
green fire. Bottle me at once or turn
me on a spit. Otherwise, I shall run out
and do until I’m done. Several enmities
gather within me. They argue amongst themselves.
Look inside my mouth and see. Is this fair?
And yet I am to blame and the guilt
sits on my shoulder like a bird. Then I walk
damaged looking down and Mother
repeats herself and tells me hot by my head
to stand up straight! Well, I would if I could.
She says I can’t if I won’t. I stammer
and go sideways. Everything will out. And if
I kill you since you will not pestle my bones
into your big stone jar, it is because you are the world
and all of you are saying you cannot hear me
simply because I cannot speak. Instead, you listen
to your liquids mating and watch
each slow metamorphosis with diligent eyes.
Page(s) 116-117
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The