Adrian Tellwright
Verbal Compote
I’d rather make a pie than a poem.
I’d rather sink my teeth
into the juicy heart beneath the pastry,
not stare over the white sanitary,
the cold sanity of the page
lacking a decent filling.
I’d rather make a pie than a poem
watch a soufflé rise,
see others sticking the knife in
to get at what’s tasty
cutting down my handiwork to crumbs
spitting out gristle like gobbets round plate
or teasing a hair off the tongue.
Even the sugar on the tips of fingers
crumbs tossed, caught in the folds
or hanging diamonds turn to dew drops
beneath the coarse spout of the nose.
Not so refined, but much tastier
than good taste, I’d rather hoover after,
than be made to eat my yellow words
— a sour, dirty rime on the page.
Sweating cook or rhyming poet?
A sharp nib or wooden spoon stuck to,
forced through cake mix? For me it has to be
elbow grease spun into crystalline
sweetmeats for love of the living.
Twiddle your whiskers and sing
I’ll race you
for who gets to lick out the bowl.
Page(s) 21
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