Three Eric Gregory Award Winners, 1998 (3)
Reading Wings
The garden hums. Bees
Nuzzle up to pollen, rub
Whiskers into cups of
Foxglove that buzz
And nod as their visitors
Suckle them. The hinged
Colour of butterflies folds
Then flits, leafy on lilac.
What else to do but give
Them names? Peacock,
Tortoiseshell, The Red
Admiral. Across a page,
My eyes move, flicking
Their own rhythm. One
Lands, light and quivering
In the valley of my book.
A long lip spirals, thin
As a sprung clock. Legs
Test the rough tongue of
Words furred underfoot.
It opens its own dot pages
Tribal, gog-eyed, a full
Stretch of cleft openings.
Spot and full stop compare:
For a moment it’s unclear
Who is camouflaging what,
Before my gaze again
Forgets itself and the theft
Is folded up and
Taken to the sky.
Page(s) 27-28
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