A wounded goose – Kieran Egan

 

A ragged V of calling geese approaches, 

one powering to take its turn at point 

as others find their places in the slipstream. 

Then as they rise towards the line of trees 

one flailing body tumbles to the ground; 

a cry and splatter twenty feet away.

It flaps a damaged wing and starts to run 

south in the direction of its fellows,

neck straining toward them, stopping at the wall.

The wounded goose and I both stand helpless 

at this sudden fathomless tragedy. 

Well to the south, the rest climb onward, 

powerful chests heaving tireless wings;

their distant honking to each other fades 

as the line dissolves in the evening sky.

 

 

 

Kieran Egan lives in Vancouver, Canada. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Quills (Canada), Literary Review of Canada, Dalhousie Review (Canada), High Window (UK), Orbis (UK), Raintown Review (USA), Envoi (UK), Shot Glass Journal (USA), Qwerty (Canada), Snapdragon (USA), The Antigonish Review (Canada), Acumen (UK), Canadian Quarterly and The Interpreter’s House (U.K); also shortlisted for the John W. Bilsland Literary Award, 2017 and for the TLS Mick Imlah prize 2017.

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March 8, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, birds, Canada, creative, creativity, cry, evening, fall, fauna, flight, geese, ground, honking, Kieran Egan, nature, poem, Poetry, sky, slipstream, trees, tumble, wings, writing Leave a comment

After Dark – Ali Jones

 

I wake at 3:15am, weight shifting towards her,

did she hear the rain? I listen to her snared cry,

try to understand the rhythm of dreams,

what happens behind her eyes, as we travel back

into our room, hazy in gathered night,

shadowed gloom making everything strange,

 

I rearrange us, fuss up pillows, billow bedding

to hold us tight until morning light comes.

Other people stir, the breathing agents of sound

too loud for easy rest. She settles, eyelids flutter,

 

I lie awake, stilled by rallying whispers of breathing,

marvel at the differences of our waking world,

how we stand at ease and claim our places,

and how deeply we commit to sleep,

 

though we fight it, nightly, reading story after story,

playing as late as we dare. The day is wrung from us

in fits and starts, sung through open lips,

teasing the snagging air, a stored syntax

 

of waking tongues, that have begun to find the sounds

they need to make, and try them in the wee small hours,

before daytime takes us away into another realm,

to refashion us into sometime else, and make us whole again.

 

 

Ali Jones is a teacher and mother of three. Her work has appeared in Fire, Poetry Rivals, Strange Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, Snakeskin Poetry, Atrium, Mother’s Milk Books, Breastfeeding Matters, Breastfeeding Today and Green Parent magazine. She has also written for The Guardian.

September 1, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: air, Ali Jones, change, creative, creativity, cry, dreams, elements, fight, humanity, life, light, night, poem, Poetry, rain, senses, sleep, sound, time, waking, world, writing Leave a comment