War Games
Your bishop zig-zags
across the board as I capture,
burn brain cells at both ends.
News-at-Ten a back-drop, a hum
of food scares, royal engagements,
a storm of flashbulbs threatening seizures.
Then Kosovo, the hard stuff.
The invasion of a Bosnia, Chechnya,
TV war of the month. Finger on remote.
A photo journalist stands feet away, shoots
as though the camera will shield his flesh
or calm a child crying yards from the lens.
Click. Vets in Practice, Ready Steady Cook,
any action but that action - real
to reel. Not like 600 years ago
when news took months to paint
and helmets covered the scared
faces of boys. Uccello, you knew
better than to prop up your easel
in fields charged with testosterone,
banners and horses with vacant eyes.
In your studio, you could pretend -
add an extra hoof or two,
an iridescent turban for impact.
Subtract a howl,
an agonised stare,
a flag in the wrong colour.
After San Romano, did you go out
to survey the wreckage, the flail
of shiny armour in fertile fields?
Did you get a whiff of those over-ripe
oranges and did they impart a citrus
tinge to the smell of body parts?
Or did you cover board with fantasy,
invent knights, action heroes to hang
in grand parlours, galleries,
above the heads of French schoolgirls,
exhausted London tourists, filling
fifteen minutes before lunch?
Page(s) 3-4
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