Angela Kirby
Fall guy
Traitor, Turnip-head,
that stopped your smirking
even though, ever merciful
to the undeserving,
before we lit the bonfire,
I'd strangled you with a tie.
Still, seeing you burn
upset the children
and, far worse -
will I never learn -
when you'd gone, when all
your sticks were charcoal
and we were dancing
round your pyre,
I wanted you back,
to see you rise
from that pall of ashes,
black-faced, soot-eyed,
trailing red-hot cinders,
wanted you, smouldering
here in my cold bed
and up to your old tricks.
that stopped your smirking
even though, ever merciful
to the undeserving,
before we lit the bonfire,
I'd strangled you with a tie.
Still, seeing you burn
upset the children
and, far worse -
will I never learn -
when you'd gone, when all
your sticks were charcoal
and we were dancing
round your pyre,
I wanted you back,
to see you rise
from that pall of ashes,
black-faced, soot-eyed,
trailing red-hot cinders,
wanted you, smouldering
here in my cold bed
and up to your old tricks.
Angela Kirby is taking a D Phil in Education and Creative Writing at Sussex University. She is widely published and has won several prizes. Most recently she was BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year 2002.
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magazine list
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- Acumen
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- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- 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