Mark Goodwin
Winter, Feel It
acknowledgements to Christina Rossetti & Zoe Skoulding
In the bleak mid-
winter long ago
frost wind moaned
land stood as iron
water was stone
snow fell on snow
on snow on snow
long ago holly
garlands, ivy
smudged red
with lights
in the bleak mid
-winter spring’s
fire
*
Winter, feel it - it
bends backs. Dark
thrives. There are
gales. Beneath eyes
bone calls to light.
The noon rolls
out moans, or cuts
her sickle-slivers
of wincing. Winter,
feel it - feel
it fall. Turn
cheek to a too-
small sun to thaw
zero’s growth
through veins. Strive.
Listen - under eyes
blood yells. Life’s
slammed shut. Feel
winter fall. Rage
is a stone face - stare
at stone. Sharpen
shapes with words.
Learn the greased
curves of roads;
through fog follow
dirtied verges home.
On bright days eye-
trace pylon-lines
against sky across
fields and copses
pewtered to bitter
intricacies uttered
in frost. Trees’ still
wriggles tangle
illegible signatures.
Birds call nowhere
by its glassy names.
They all strive:
sleep eat eat eat
sleep eat eat eat
sleep eat eat eat
Some die. They wait.
Winter, feel it. See
light’s weight - patient
in icicles’ ends, or
scattered on grass
in cold rain.
Page(s) 83
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