Pat Winslow
Otztal
The mortal remains were collected by helicopter.
They hoisted his body into the side. Belsen man.
It sent a line of guilt into my veins,
an icicle of memory, to see him like that,
to see his arms so twisted up inside the orange body bag,
like he'd been hung from a pig-hook somewhere.
They found a cloak of woven grass, some arrows and a quiver,
his copper axe. They are melting everything.
They are sorting through his belongings,
boiling water and labelling them. Artefacts.
The personal pronoun is lost.
Eighteen different types of wood, grains of corn,
knives, a sharpening stone. If there'd been cameras,
whose likeness would he have carried?
And what tune was he whistling
when he fell and cracked his ribs?
They hoisted his body into the side. Belsen man.
It sent a line of guilt into my veins,
an icicle of memory, to see him like that,
to see his arms so twisted up inside the orange body bag,
like he'd been hung from a pig-hook somewhere.
They found a cloak of woven grass, some arrows and a quiver,
his copper axe. They are melting everything.
They are sorting through his belongings,
boiling water and labelling them. Artefacts.
The personal pronoun is lost.
Eighteen different types of wood, grains of corn,
knives, a sharpening stone. If there'd been cameras,
whose likeness would he have carried?
And what tune was he whistling
when he fell and cracked his ribs?
magazine list
- Features
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- 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