Jesse Glass
Rag Picker
Where the harsh grackle thrash
of throat & tongue
given burrs & thorny nodes
by South China air
is never hushed
but wrangles in the distant
tangle of cry & claxon
down an alley
of scum-thickened puddles
a man wearing
a wooden yoke
rests on a stone settle
tan sacks
like two witless
brothers
slouching beside his slouch.
His feral smell rising,
clarifying in the sun,
he sits in the dirt
picks a callus
examines one hooked toe
with a jeweler’s interest
trembles a hand
across the grizzled leather of his face
///searching slit pockets
delicately coughs fog,
-(finds nothing.
!!!
[factory pipes]
erupt
gray water
c,a,s,c,a,d,i,n,g
in the morning chill,
t,u,m,b,l,i.n,g down the g,u,t,t,e,r.
He
leans to watch the
birthing of the stones.
Page(s) 79
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