hunters
when a lone goose cries out
to her kin across the mire,
she is calling to
her own wings,
willing them
to beat.
her lungs, enveloped in the
grave call,
are weak and oil-slicked,
her tawny beak gummed with
death’s drum-black tar,
one violent cranberry eye
gapes skyward
does she blame,
perhaps
the season, too early
or the departure, too late?
does she curse the five,
collective in flight?
the U,
V,
the I,
and their level, metered
breaths, white with condensation?
neither, I say, she is too wise
the last word comes with
truce in sleep:
for even brave men,
strong men,
good men,
will soon make
wise men with glazing-cranberry eyes
ainsi, you hounds, sharpshooters,
reveille!
and lie beneath your lamp-lit musket sky
whose hail and rain makes
meat of men
there will be no rust on the
gates of heaven tonight
Page(s) 46-47
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