Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Philip Gross

print this page

Poppy, Difficult

…besides, why should you think
I must yield you a meaning,

as if these ripped off birthday-
tissue petals – Ooh…!

For ME? – disclosed more
than the obsessive-compulsive traits

of bees, their usefulness for other
purposes than theirs? (Imagine bee-

philosophy, its wrestling with The Problem
Of The Wind – how it warps

our bearings; though we steer a true
path up it like the compass

still it shifts.) Even the seed-
pod readied for its sawn-off-shotgun

blast of propagation (the DNA
gangland, a turf war of multitudes

of tiny Mister Bigs) – is that it?
First consider the bee-hum

in your head, that draws you
to me, to shake me, shake me

to release my meaning, as frail
as I am, till the scent of me

stains your fingers, the way ink does
(yes, you – you know who you are).

The guilty prints you’ll leave
are yours, you – on the precious

white page, on the pale skin
of anyone, however loved, you touch.

Photograph set in woodland 

Philip Gross’ latest collection, The Egg of Zero, appeared from Bloodaxe this Spring, as did a new novel, The Storm Garden (OUP). The poem in this issue of Magma comes from The Abstract Garden, a collaboration with engraver Peter Reddick, to be published shortly by The Old Stile Press.

Page(s) 24

Back to top