The Special Correspondent Goes to War
News has always found me,
the way static on a mountaintop
stands hair on end.
I have this curse for place and time.
The gas explosion on the way to school,
the hijacked Boeing grounding flights
to Tenerife, the oil slick
closing round the boat I'd chartered for a break,
the war criminal suddenly exposed,
his picture window bungalow
two streets from my maiden aunt.
At first they'd send me anywhere
(random pinpricks in a map) knowing
how my chemistry would bond
with paedophiles, race riots,
ethnic cleansing, earthquakes,
Now they dog the house,
cameras following like paparazzi when I leave.
But this way any news belongs to them
and hasn't really happened,
so I have to slip out in disguise.
A month ago in full drag I left
a young hack with his eyes watering
against the backyard fence. Last night
I carried a Kalashnikov right past them.
I could hear events shrink back
into the shadows, slip down alleys
like second thoughts. Two days ago
I took an axe to the editor's Mondeo.
No one's reported that.
Tonight I'm looking through old cuttings,
searching for a pattern I can jinx.
A can of petrol comes to mind,
some charred remains (not mine),
a fresh start in a war zone no one's heard of yet.
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