Malcolm Povey
Sparrowhawk
The heavy-shouldered hawk hunches,
Rips bits of blackbird, only a flight
Or two free of the nest, now its dinner
On a table-cloth of grass.
After each gulp, it swivels
Its fire-ferocious eyes, scanning
For cats, dogs, anything bigger.
The guts, stretched tight to snap,
Get redder and thinner and redder
Against the pampered green.
Discreet, grey stripes on the hawk’s tail,
Like a banker’s hand-stitched suit,
Euphemise savagery.
In the shade of new-trimmed privet,
The father blackbird writhes
Its wings, and pipe-pipe-pipes
Its cry against the nature of things,
Its little chivvier’s feathers
Breeze-blown across the lawn.
Rips bits of blackbird, only a flight
Or two free of the nest, now its dinner
On a table-cloth of grass.
After each gulp, it swivels
Its fire-ferocious eyes, scanning
For cats, dogs, anything bigger.
The guts, stretched tight to snap,
Get redder and thinner and redder
Against the pampered green.
Discreet, grey stripes on the hawk’s tail,
Like a banker’s hand-stitched suit,
Euphemise savagery.
In the shade of new-trimmed privet,
The father blackbird writhes
Its wings, and pipe-pipe-pipes
Its cry against the nature of things,
Its little chivvier’s feathers
Breeze-blown across the lawn.
Page(s) 26
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