Patricia Pogson
Onwards And Up
She can’t go out much. Mostly we talk about
what we don’t do. Or how that chaffinch
sits on her washing line and throws itself
at the french windows. How I’ve been splitting
clumps of snowdrops to spread around the apple tree.
What to do about slugs. Sprinkle them with salt.
How terrible he is at shopping, not knowing
the difference between wheatgerm and oatbran.
How he snapped her pruning knife and can’t
won’t take things back.
She can’t put the weight back on. Nothing but
full cream milk, butter, eggs, avocados, bananas
and still the scales are stuck. Half a stomach
must be better than none. She’s cheesed off.
His invalidity makes peanuts of her pension
and he gives most of it away. Nothing on TV
but people changing things. Time present
time past, it doesn’t seem to matter. Best
make another snack, sit by the burping gasfire
waiting for the chaffinch to attack.
Page(s) 11
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