Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
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 Sinead Morrissey 'The Lightbox' Philip Terry 'What is Poetry' Ned Denny 'Nine Poems after Verlaine' Sasha Dugdale 'On learning that Russian mothers buy their soldier sons lucky belts inscribed with Psalm 90 to wear into battle' Rod Mengham 'Cold War Hot Air'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 166, Volume 32 Number 2, November - December 2005.

A Bunch of Tales Michael Haslam

I caught a minute of what might have been the story:
     a stray pack of clouds in dark advent,
december hounds out on a run,
     down high brown moor-side. Then it's gone.
I nearly lost that one.

A bunch of dreamers in their nightwear
in a van who do repairs bring parody
to the affair. Black Mare. Crying hoarse
on the edge in high volumes of air. A black maria.

I was on that case and come to write
it out in a report, and there is no one here
but mist and smoke, the stubs of
     burned forest.
Shafts of phoebus glide the dusky glade and light
     on ferns, and fairy moats. And here I find
the comic in, just twiddling returns. I ask:
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image