Hinkypunk

By | 1 June 2013
Ignus Fatuus (Fools’ fire)




It’s you, Elizabeth, got left behind.

Black clouds mass on the hill above. Here’s how

it goes: head full of shadows, tired, spaced out;

pipe smoke, wet collie, hob-nail clack in hall.

This time, pain-blitzed, churchyard in mind, your toy

half-grave, blue bobbing candle flames float past

the gaping parlour door. Signposts, head height,

omens of fate, my baneful toxic plight,

your death lament, this jack o’lantern fugue

of grief, remorse and dread lures me towards

the darkness where your doll-size coffin lies.

Your perfect angel eyes are marrow-less,

like when they snapped us both, in hospital,

you folded on my breast, voiceless, gene-cracked.
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Peter Branson’s poetry has been published by journals in Britain, USA, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, including Acumen, Ambit, Envoi, The Warwick Review, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Nottingham, The New Writer, The Raintown Review, The Columbia Review, Barnwood and others. His first collection, The Accidental Tourist, was published in May 2008. A second collection was published at the beginning of last year by Caparison Press for ‘The Recusant’. He has been ‘highly commended’ in the Petra Kenny International, first prizes in the Grace Dieu and the Envoi International and a special commendation in the 2012 Wigtown. His latest book, Red Hill, Selected poems, 2000-2012, by Lapwing Press, Ireland, is due later this year.

More by Peter Branson on Cordite Poetry Review →

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