About the size of a monkey
You shout
punching the wind
reciting alliterative words.
Your command of English
is bloody good.
I laugh at your ‘f’
words.
***
We follow the path
walking worshippers
sniffing the sea’s
closeness the layered mud
the swampy grasses
tapping in their roots.
High and dry in Parnell
the cathedral sits
stuck in concrete
like a bloated ark.
You know God’s
there - we saw him at Easter
crouching beside
the organ - about the size
of a monkey - brown
and furred in his winter coat
picking at his skin.
***
Giddy with words
beginning with ‘h’
like heaven
and holy
like bloody hell
we climb up
amongst the houses
and pink magnolias.
***
HOME comes up
capitalised and yes
it’s a race hoofing uphill
to the gate.
punching the wind
reciting alliterative words.
Your command of English
is bloody good.
I laugh at your ‘f’
words.
***
We follow the path
walking worshippers
sniffing the sea’s
closeness the layered mud
the swampy grasses
tapping in their roots.
High and dry in Parnell
the cathedral sits
stuck in concrete
like a bloated ark.
You know God’s
there - we saw him at Easter
crouching beside
the organ - about the size
of a monkey - brown
and furred in his winter coat
picking at his skin.
***
Giddy with words
beginning with ‘h’
like heaven
and holy
like bloody hell
we climb up
amongst the houses
and pink magnolias.
***
HOME comes up
capitalised and yes
it’s a race hoofing uphill
to the gate.
Iain Britton is Director of Maori Studies at King’s School, Auckland, New Zealand. He is widely published in magazines in New Zealand, Australia, USA and the UK, and was recently
anthologised in Poetry Aotearoa - new poetry in New Zealand.
anthologised in Poetry Aotearoa - new poetry in New Zealand.
Page(s) 69
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