Dennis Carter
Owls Calls
Owl calls each a
perfect O, capital O
and small o-o-o-o’s
threaded on a slack
and moonlit string,
going small and
smaller into dark
bushes of night.
Or shakes his full
moons out onto
the fabric of night
like many dice
or roulette balls.
At first he nudges
a note like the first
push on Newton’s
cradle, more dainty
touch than tap.
Later simply he wails
in mournful solitude
beneath encrusted stars
of the winter night sky.
Soon a distant one
gurgles back and flies,
flattening the rounded
note, muffling the ting
of it till it is gull’s
whinge over dusty
grass and arias are
duets with harsh
howls and squeaks
as dead as prey
till a distant owl
remembers the first
refrains, calls them
to glistening order,
the shining strings
of perfect O’s
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