He Uses A Buzz-Saw All The Time
Wears sunglasses in the house
eats nothing but honey and toast:
doesn’t like people or children and
the swing-seats are missing in the park.
He doesn’t keep a dog
keeps poison under the sink.
He uses a buzz-saw all the time.
Hears the neighbours complain
about too-many-wasps:
smiles when he hears the word stung.
Spiders everywhere in the house:
talks in slow whispers to them,
knocks out blue-bottles for them,
uses a buzz-saw all the time.
Gets lots of mail,
subscribes to magazines
with names like Oblivion and Suicide:
has no friends.
Under the stairs there’s a box full
of butchers’ knives. A claw-hammer,
a Viking axe and chains of all
sizes: all well-oiled. Yet his doors all creak.
He uses a buzz-saw all the time.
At night in his bedroom
a light burns in a cow’s skull.
He has a drawer full of flash-lights.
He’s reading Edgar Allan Poe,
buries things in the early hours:
hangs a lantern on a rusty nail
embedded in a twisted oak,
uses a buzz-saw all the time.
Today he saved a wasp
on a shovel handle;
it was dying in the wind and rain.
So he placed it in the golden light:
fed it honey till it flew.
After, he checked the wasps’ nest
in the attic: everything okay.
He uses a buzz-saw all the time.
Page(s) 42-43
magazine list
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- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
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- Erbacce
- Fabric
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- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- 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