Gary Allen
Recruits
Milling round the goal-posts
clad in shorts, tee-shirts, slippers,
rubbing and blowing on hands,
stamping feet on frosted ground,
dancing on the spot to keep warm,
he lit one of his cigarette-ends,
passed it around with trembling fingers.
Kicking the ball about
till the bell rang, he looked comical,
yellowing vest, long trousers,
battered training-shoes
slipping on ice.
Into the changing-rooms
bellowing steam from the showers ,
smell of stale sweat, dirty socks,
running naked, flicking a torn towel,
flaunting his genitals with pride.
Bony arms, ribs prominent,
wasted haunches, dark bruising and weals
over most of his flesh,
catching the spray of water in his mouth,
spitting it out, he confided,
‘In a few months, the freedom of the army;
stuff the old man’.
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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