Scissorhappy
Making gumbo for the first time ever,
armed with scissors and a rough idea
of the ingredients: okra!
Anything fresh you can spare.
And your scissor hand
is a trained threshing shark.
Wield the blades like a gardener
hacking back years of tangled growth.
Tear into the vegetables,
crack every vein of celery,
savage the slippery chicken
and maul the sausage meat.
Let the metal, at points,
brush your fingertips.
Mix up the carnage,
sweep it into a pan,
sizzle and flood it,
then dust it with a storm of spices,
and seven days later
you can still smell the chilli peppers
under your fingernails.
armed with scissors and a rough idea
of the ingredients: okra!
Anything fresh you can spare.
And your scissor hand
is a trained threshing shark.
Wield the blades like a gardener
hacking back years of tangled growth.
Tear into the vegetables,
crack every vein of celery,
savage the slippery chicken
and maul the sausage meat.
Let the metal, at points,
brush your fingertips.
Mix up the carnage,
sweep it into a pan,
sizzle and flood it,
then dust it with a storm of spices,
and seven days later
you can still smell the chilli peppers
under your fingernails.
Page(s) 25
magazine list
- Features
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- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- 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