John Gilham
Barefoot In The Dark
coming downstairs, barefoot, in the dark
I head for the fridge, a yoghurt maybe,
and tread in something squelchy on the floor
cold, wet, and semi-solid.
lights!
cat vomit!
I add it to my list of
"Things The Cats Have Brought Us":
a slit frog, hundreds of feathers,
most with blood on them,
a whole wing, the body never found,
a dead vole tucked lovingly between the sheets
we discovered in the morning,
and several half dead birds it was the devil to catch
once they'd been pried from proud and puzzled jaws
and panicked round the room;
and fleas, and worms, and mice,
a rat behind the arras
and random, unidentified remains.
there are things you bargain for
and things you don't.
considered coldly, these cats
tread as we do, tiptoeing in the dark,
hiding a precarious balance
between nine lives and nine deaths,
the expected carpet and the unexpected slime.
Page(s) 63
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