Issue 18: Iain Britton
(Tom Raworth Memorial)

UNIFIED COLOURED HATS

weathered | like wood | he wants what i’ve got |

stands in the doorway & asks for chopped-up apple |

every room i go into | i meet him | he occupies

rectangles | feels for shadows | tampers with

my curiosity | outside everything is too bright |

there’s this girl giving poppies to survivors

to refugees | the last full-blooded sons

of a midday summer’s shoot-out | the forest |

 is a good place to hide | to switch off the glow-worms |

to loll about on the grass | to lie in gardens

with no naked distractions | we argue about

living off the smell of compost | because it’s useful |

a matter of convenience | my mouth is wet

with orchard saliva | it’s that time of the year

to offer no regrets | no excuses | i bend the rules to

perfect a collage of commemorative events | the months

flip over & seasons zigzag across worn paths | we appear

joined at the tips of words | conversations wrap around us

like hoops | we sit | unified by coloured hats | he

conjures up bizarre thoughts | he’s emphatic | lying flat

on his back | urban-sprawled | gnawed at by too much

exposure | a make-believe horizon evaporates | &

i stand between him | & the rain | & afterwards |

the sun milks thistles | the soft glands of new growth |

white dust is tapped | he thrusts out an arm | snatches

at birds at flying chunks of landscape at clouds

out of control | he hoists himself to his feet | & we meet

head on | ready-made to burn | an endlessness

peeling back rejuvenated faces

Since 2008, Iain Britton has had five collections of poems published, mainly in the UK. Recently, poems have been published or are forthcoming in the Poetry NZ Yearbook, Landfall, Brief (NZ) Meniscus, foam.e (Aust) Harvard Review, Mantis, POETRY (US) STAND, Stride Magazine, Clinic, The Literateur, The Black Market Re-View, The Fortnightly Review, M58, The High Window, Agenda and Poetry Wales (UK). A full collection of new poetry THE INTAGLIO POEMS will be published soon by Hesterglock Press (UK).

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