Peter Haythorne
Crabwise
There was a bucketful of them.
They spilled, crawled, climbed, clawed
slowly tossed and fell: precision made;
cold iodine colour of their own
world of sand and occasional
brown weed, round stone chilled clean
in the chopping waters of their coast.
One fell out. The marine thing
on the grass tried to trundle off,
barbarian and immaculate
to be killed with his kin.
We lit water,
dumped the living mass in,
contemplated potatoes and bread
and with the largesse of civilised men,
cigarettes, that is, and cold beer
and chatter, waited on and lived down
the ten-foot-away clatter
of crabs as they died for us
inside their boiling can.
They spilled, crawled, climbed, clawed
slowly tossed and fell: precision made;
cold iodine colour of their own
world of sand and occasional
brown weed, round stone chilled clean
in the chopping waters of their coast.
One fell out. The marine thing
on the grass tried to trundle off,
barbarian and immaculate
to be killed with his kin.
We lit water,
dumped the living mass in,
contemplated potatoes and bread
and with the largesse of civilised men,
cigarettes, that is, and cold beer
and chatter, waited on and lived down
the ten-foot-away clatter
of crabs as they died for us
inside their boiling can.
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