They
said you only had to look
into his eyes
to see a stranger;
a doorstep child
they called him
who made no sense
however hard they tried.
They
remembered his collections
of things in jars,
old nails, bone bits, ring-pulls,
the errands for the widow
his lame mum cleaned for
who wouldn't hear a bad word
said against him.
They
frowned and shook their heads
at the cat found in the dyke,
the coping stone
chipped from the bridge
and heaved onto the track,
the silly laugh,
the dry stare
if you showed him kindness.
They
weren't surprised
when his name came up,
although he'd long since left the parish
and the brick house on the marsh was derelict
where once his dad bred pigeons
and his no good bloody brother
came and went.
They
knew a thing or two
they said, not telling
when the police came to the door,
for that was years ago
when their unkind stares
could never have anticipated this,
his picture on The News,
and everybody's knowing nods
beginning to make
some sense of things at last.
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