Nirvana
The toad must eat
the spineless things
that crunch, that shuffle, that squirm.
- Squirm is best.
Eyeballs squeeze and push
the soft thing into the gullet
to join the legion in the belly.
The invertebrates are always on the move,
and the toad is eating and eating,
as it must eat and eat
and overload its rucksack gut
so that always the last worm
squirms from the toad's cloaca
undigested,
and the toad will turn a gulping eyeball
and spot the movement,
and that same last worm
will be sucked in again and again
and again, swallowed and evacuated
- infinite vermicelli.
the spineless things
that crunch, that shuffle, that squirm.
- Squirm is best.
Eyeballs squeeze and push
the soft thing into the gullet
to join the legion in the belly.
The invertebrates are always on the move,
and the toad is eating and eating,
as it must eat and eat
and overload its rucksack gut
so that always the last worm
squirms from the toad's cloaca
undigested,
and the toad will turn a gulping eyeball
and spot the movement,
and that same last worm
will be sucked in again and again
and again, swallowed and evacuated
- infinite vermicelli.
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