Featured Poet: Robert Saxton

See the songthrush and the barn owl
pray, each ensconced in its hood
of light: brown Franciscan cowl
whose alms, fat panoply of food,

swell to plenty in the twin globes
of the world, one eye at each side
of the head; while slits in robes
peer lustily at the unconfirmed bride,

equally watchful in their facial disc,
huge devil’s eyes computing the distance
from an angel, exterminating risk,
the iron will of happenstance

which strikes like lightning on a spire
without a rod, and silences the choir.

Lemon’s unhinged me. What’s keeping you, pine?
I’m a sturgeon, so dry in my puddle of rain,
grateful it's turnover time for the pain.

When pains flit around, there’s no cause for alarm,
they’re acting, quite badly – a stageful of ham,
too nervous to settle, too green to wish harm.

But water’s upset by the sound of the fire,
the murderous sizzle, the rallying cheer,
grateful it’s turnover time for the fear.

The acid’s on drip and the caviar’s late.
Some nurse is asleep in my yesterday shirt.
I’m in trouble, I’m cold, I’m on yellow alert.

Canaries turn blue, there’s a kink in the seal,
so I’ve swallowed a diamond to prospect for coal –

happy it’s turnover time for the soul.