Between Baroque and A Hard Place
Where innocence meets mischief, putti reign:
Their mindset
is not quite passion or gain
but an indistinct state
of legerdemain.
Prick-teasers, go-betweens, the type of
younger brother who galls
through chirpy insistence, these love
envoys have compact balls
and penises and won't shave
for years. They get beneath your feet.
In their eagerness to please
they irk. Eye-catching, indiscreet,
they resemble show-off pageboys
after weddings: at
once adorable and execrable,
the sort of little shits
who crawl under the table
to undo shoelaces. It's
only because they inhabit fable
that we tolerate their excesses
and even envy their
chases, embraces,
and romps en plein air
wherever caresses
are the currency and sweet nothings
the speech of the chatty.
Beyond their forgettable mouthings
they shower confetti
and petals and proffer gold rings.
Cheeky amoretti!
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