Whisky
We call it lively water for its burn of breath
Keeps winter awhile away
Even the sprinting halfhearted Australian winters
Which fade and bloom the same day.
It is Ossian's ichor, Jameson's god on wheels;
Can transform five o'clock
From the depths of the wobbly soul by leaping
Straight to the brain or cock.
We need not celebrate it with a champagne toast:
Two fingers of gold will do.
It swims around in the back of my eyes transforming
Every linoleum view.
It stains our veins telling today tomorrow
Has better things to do.
I'm yabbering away nineteen to the dozen,
Some of which may be true.
poetrymagazines' note: Reproduced with kind permission of Carcanet.
Page(s) 9
magazine list
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
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- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- 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