John West
Inquiries About Mr Hogan
His son rang
he’d had his two kids bashed
one Almost strangled...
(don’t take my word
see his History, oh
should I be telling you?
He’s crying
threatening to jump
from a window
it seems important
all the mess
the concoction
which ends up
as glue to our lives
any story
to help us get
through our fifties
our sixties
our teens
any story
we can take a template from
and his name
of course
has been changed)
and now his daughter
has rung
every half hour
one of them calls
as he is about to let go
without needing
a window
he saw a friend go gently
cancer, so morphine and nice nurses
but he is stuck
with his shredded lungs, oh
and his wife killed herself
his daughter said
after thirty years
of hitting
with fists and words, oh
and he owned a cat
he butted out
his cigarettes
on
Page(s) 29
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