Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 255, Volume 47 Number 1, September - October 2020.

Day Hectic and other poems
Three Poems
Paul Stephenson
Day Hectic

I’d just doored the get-in when the red ring phoned.
Living into the running room, I received the pick-up,
eared it wearily to my hold. An enquired voice: Hello?
I’m froming the call… can I glaze you in double-interested?

I colden hate-callers: No! Mouthpiecing down the slam,
I blazered my hang-up, shoed off too-tight kicks, sighed,
saw evening windows streaming August through the light.
The peace seemed strangely at room, but then I noticed…

mantel the besidepiece a walling had painted off the fall,
must have bookcased behind the slide. To reach it meant
hardbacking all the take-outs, stacking them in carefuls
of spine-worn crime – tedious and it would take a time.

I gently landscaped the salvage – a favourite take-me-to
my used-to mother beached – grandfathered by my oil-do
the die before he yeared. Two-inching in a deep hammer,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image