Bruce McRae
Trap
This is the inside-out
composed of lead and heavy water.
This is the hook, entangled:
wired nets of nails and self;
no way for light’s escape,
no cries of freed at last.
A cage that’s made of night,
a quicksand of clever knots
tightening in your struggle:
the one way out is in.
Do we not scream
to be undone?
I’m in a rounded room
and seeking corners;
into the box — out of the loop:
snared and snared alike.
Tormenting me — a rattled key
in the distance, in the morning.
Here is the upside-down,
the tripwire of kidology:
lose the hand to save the arm
and pace and pace and pace.
See those high walls and razor-wire?
All life is breaking out.
composed of lead and heavy water.
This is the hook, entangled:
wired nets of nails and self;
no way for light’s escape,
no cries of freed at last.
A cage that’s made of night,
a quicksand of clever knots
tightening in your struggle:
the one way out is in.
Do we not scream
to be undone?
I’m in a rounded room
and seeking corners;
into the box — out of the loop:
snared and snared alike.
Tormenting me — a rattled key
in the distance, in the morning.
Here is the upside-down,
the tripwire of kidology:
lose the hand to save the arm
and pace and pace and pace.
See those high walls and razor-wire?
All life is breaking out.
Page(s) 5
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