Issue 8: January 2005
Matthew Caley | Matthew Francis | Kathryn Gray | Daljit Nagra | Tim Wells
MATTHEW FRANCIS
Roadkill
How patient the dead are. Every morning we pass it
half on the kerb, still in the same furred slump.
Neither the tickle of wind
nor rush of tyres can twitch
its slept-in body.
It means business.
Angel Bones
1
Formerly they were often found —
not that many angels have perished in these mountains,
but that a little of one goes a long way.
They were guarded reverently lest they fly off again.
2
The reconstruction will be based in part
on these bones of a Principality from near Wareham
(see diagram). The artist's impression below
shows the Angel Room where it will be suspended
in the vertical, declamatory, position.
The exhibit will be one hundred cubits high.
3
The thought came to both of us at once.
It was beyond now. It wouldn't feel anything.
Little fingers weren't enough. We hooked
our elbows round the bone's great struts and heaved.
But it held firm. It was the walls that cracked,
and the room was filled with the white light of wish.
Rosary
There are thirteen strawberries threaded on a grass stem.
There are thirteen strawberries threaded on a grass stem
on a table at the edge of the forest,
the feathered head holding them in place.
There are thirteen strawberries threaded on a grass stem
the way they do it here, a rough translation
of the daisychain lore of my past,
its arsenal of seedpods,
makeshift edibles.
These are northern and wild, all seeds and suggestiveness.
They taste of long evenings with nothing in them
except light, which if you let it stand
curdles green and red, thirteen
strawberries threaded
on a grass
stem.
All poems previously unpublished. Visit Matthew Francis' web site.
Available from Amazon.co.uk:
W.S. Graham: New Collected Poems, editor (Faber, 2004)
Where the People Are: Language and Community in the Poetry of W.S. Graham (Salt, 2004)
Dragons (Faber, 2001)
Blizzard (Faber, 1996)