Toby Olson
Magic Act
Why is it I sit out here
and try to write
while you’re inside
reading a book,
and come in many times to drink
or speak to you?
afraid
you’ll catch me in the act
of lies
before I have the time
to cover it up
with fancy images: the ice-house
steaming in the morning fog,
grace of the Osprey over land.
Really, there’s only
the closed down fish plant near the bay
the bird
is fat and heavy in his flight
and almost falls:
hath not the grace of smaller hawks
and yet he hunts and tumbles
in the air.
Why does he hunt on land?
the Osprey
is a fisher-hawk
Either the book lies or the bird
or else my sight or else
the things I write
Why do you sit and read? Last night
we looked at the full moon through binoculars
we found it three dimensional
and almost real.
Page(s) 16
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
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- 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