Matt Simpson
Something You Can't Deny
At Dead Cow Creek the front horse sloshed
into deep black mud. The children
had to be carried. You went downstream
and jumped your mount across. That afternoon,
startled by echoing screams, you wheeled
to find the children's nurse distraught,
blood spouting from the baby's neck. A leech,
only a leech, said Charles. And then
Sydney Bill arrived to guide you on
the last long leg. Even so, in gloom
with your poor sight, you kept losing the track.
Ten hours' horseback had you cramped
and chilled to the marrow, hardly aware
of reins or hands, feeling at any time
you might just topple off. Only when you heard
far-off dogs and out of the dark a building loomed,
did you know you had arrived at Castle Dismal,
the worst of all your homes-from-home.
into deep black mud. The children
had to be carried. You went downstream
and jumped your mount across. That afternoon,
startled by echoing screams, you wheeled
to find the children's nurse distraught,
blood spouting from the baby's neck. A leech,
only a leech, said Charles. And then
Sydney Bill arrived to guide you on
the last long leg. Even so, in gloom
with your poor sight, you kept losing the track.
Ten hours' horseback had you cramped
and chilled to the marrow, hardly aware
of reins or hands, feeling at any time
you might just topple off. Only when you heard
far-off dogs and out of the dark a building loomed,
did you know you had arrived at Castle Dismal,
the worst of all your homes-from-home.
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