Andrew Neilson
Bestiary
My favourite was the manticore,
spindrift genes from unsettled pools
of lion, man, and something more –
the scorpion’s segmented tail.
And then, of course, the hippogriff,
the griffin and the cockatrice
or basilisk, their hybrid life
from page to page grew clamorous.
These monsters, regal mongrels
couchant across heraldic fields,
these remnants from the fables
would slouch and strut, then have me lulled
to duvet warmth and dreaming sleep.
Once docile, frozen breath unfurled,
before my parents woke me up
I’d walk the strange, the fictional.
Companions when I think of them:
moulted feathers, a silken leash,
flared ruddy scales, each emblem
of virtue, vice, a noble house...
I’m back there now. In the garden,
a moonlit tableau broken off.
As I watch the rhododendrons,
a barb swings through the undergrowth.
Page(s) 56
magazine list
- Features
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- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
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- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
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- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
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- 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