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).
