Issue 23: Adam Warne
near the hide
commonly seen I’m wading
between Dunwich and Sizewell in
pairs the Scrape from side to
avocets use their beaks to scythe
what shall we do
on the morning I was
turrrrrr turrrrrr
teu-lu teu-lu
sloughed off the wind near
the sluice and car park
each fumbling up binoculars
when the third
sat upon an egg
tell me true how a
turtle doves had fled
a few returning
changes she replied
in the gorse
shingle, rust
chak-chak
any bat found on the ground
likely to need help
and behind us the road
smeared along the North
Sea lagoons often
small on lowland heath
yellow, golden
an scratchy song
Paradise Lost
my pupil John Milton visit
the vicarage at Stowmarket
Rev. Dr. Thomas Young
tutor of the poet, vicar,
puritan, republican
plants a mulberry tree
for short periods while
discussing how best
to overturn the
church and monarchy
you're right about
severe and polemical
but I worried
every poem I wrote
needed to be important
competing for temp
teaching work
we are all tired
reading over feedback
cutting the line
"I am still alive"
the form now goes
straight to the Graduate School
with supervisors copied in
both this autumn came
we shake the branches
in his garden
for the fruit
with great vigour
plotting together
to destroy all
structures of power
hope you get the fellowship
near Nan True’s Hole
nearly hit by
an angel of Mark
E. Smith his breast
was naked he had
no weapon I knew
not what at length
along Valley Lane
since I do not
fight further there
was more thicket
a red-legged partridge
shakes out
krwk krwk krwk
KRWK KRWK
krwk krwk
John Peel interviews
PJ Harvey and John
Parish and plays
the session tracks
with this
I am glad to be
in earth as in
heaven all around
me at dawn came
to look and meet
as from branch
to branch in
the hawthorn
hedge the wren is
not afraid
he asks if the
birds are alive
other side of
the footpath
the sunlight moves
across the faces
of the ponds
and they made
to meet at the
gate was stiff
from the rain
a good place to perch
Adam Warne's debut pamphlet Suffolk Bang was published by Gatehouse Press in 2018. He lives in Suffolk and is working on a Creative Writing PhD at Roehampton about mental illness and Will Kemp's morris dance.
Copyright © 2019 by Adam Warne, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
