Gillian Prew lives in Scotland and is the author of two chapbooks,
DISCONNECTIONS (erbacce-press, 2011) and In the Broken Things (Virgogray Press, 2011). A further book, THROATS FULL OF GRAVES, is newly released from Lapwing Publications. Her poems have been published widely online and in print, including Danse Macabre du Jour, Up the Staircase Quarterly, The Glasgow Review, The Recusant and Ink Sweat & Tears. She has twice been short-listed for the erbacce-prize. You can find her online at http://gillianprew.com/ |
TWO POEMS
by Gillian Prew MARCH, REVISITED
Lifted, listen to the stains of the birds their eyes oil, their flight a flowered rain. No sun stammers above the cloud. No sun cleans the tide, wraps the dead. Bloodless, the stalks of spring wait to be flames. Their sappy blades are madness. Only sorrow sees them, alone as a tied dog waiting for a yellow bone, a heavy ink to give it a name. I cannot move. This is my rain perhaps, my pulse the waves of the firth, the gulls fishing for graves. THE ARRIVAL OF MOURNING
This plug of grief, loosened, a warm funeral. Abandoned to the knotted waters. The blind tide heaving and wrecked. From birth the beckoning of cascading waste. How the jagged skyline, sinking, reflects the blood, whittles the air. The arrival of mourning, brave and black-suited, chiming its mirror bell, shutting the day to a leaning tomb. Its withered eyes, like cherry stones, lamenting their lost sweetness. I, a blushing callous on the sideline, singing like a shadow. Speechless. |