Mandy Pannett
Is that the way to treat Griffins?
That’s a novel idea, Alexander, a team of griffins exploring the sky.
What did you say? - to see if it’s still the same
as the sky we know, or is there a slither of alchemy there,
a chemical glint in a rainbow seam, a coconut land
of mango and pineapple, tough bittersweet? One planet
is definitely not enough, for achievers like you.
But the methods you used - whips and chains
on creatures like this, their food on poles
just out of their reach, stretching their necks
in conditioned response, like Skinner’s rats in a box,
like flashing a bulb, like tinging a bell - the fundamentals
of need 'We gotta be fed!' Is that
the way to treat griffins? They are
lovers of emeralds, Aaron’s jewels,
their eyes the cream of an avocado stirred
by a kiwi green. They are Eagles of Gold, Apollo’s
birds, snatching the rays of the morning sun
and hurling them over the saffron -
And the ultimate gain from that swelter of blue? -
a very small plot of land seen from above.
Worth tarnishing metal? Debasing the grain?
And now there are no more griffins. Just
logos, perhaps, with a media buzz.
No more lions of India, no eyes of fire,
no secrets whispered in flame.
Only a monster to be zapped and shot
in some computer game.
Page(s) 51
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