Refugee
I know the earth belongs to you
in the same way the moon does.
You’re the unspoken clause,
the question nobody wants:
how bad does it have to be
to begin an inventory
of what you can take: the clothes
you stand up and lie down in,
the soft perishable fruit
of your brain, a map, a country
carefully folded in four,
an exoskeleton of laughter ––
Mark Granier‘s poems have appeared in numerous outlets, including The New Statesman, The TLS, The Friday Poem and Ink, Sweat And Tears. His fifth collection, Ghostlight: New & Selected Poems, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2017. His sixth is forthcoming.
The Numbering at Bethlehem
After Pieter Bruegel
They have not gathered to enjoy themselves,
their full pockets will soon be emptied.
A mother struggles to hold her little boy
next to the tax gatherer’s desk.
A woman cooks outside,
her two children play nearby,
her husband hurries to help;
the axe on the long trunks.
Some other men, husbands no doubt,
stop working to chat. The pond is crowded
with ice-skating kids and men
with backs bent by baskets.
On a mule’s back, a woman in a blue mantle
and a man slip in among the others.
The carts left outside overnight
are covered with a mantle of snow.
Chiara Salomoni’s poems were published online on various journals. Her poems were published and are forthcoming in print in magazines including Acumen and Orbis. Her poem ‘On the Street’ was among the twenty shortlisted in the Norwich Theatre Royal’s Ghost Light poetry competition in 2020. Her translation of Silvio Ramat’s poem was given an Honorable Mention in the Stephen Spender Prize in 2014. Chiara Salomoni’s translations of poems by Andrea Zanzotto and Corrado Govoni were published online and in print in Poem in 2018, in the Rialto Magazine 98 and in New Humanist autumn 2022 issue.
Note: This poem was previously published online on WordCity Literary Journal in 2021.
Roadside
Our country is verge; a borderland roughly mown
then left to lawlessness. So far no-one has thought
to mine or hunt here; all too busy passing through.
Either side of their leaving, easement spreads
in green peninsulas that begin again wherever
they end: soft lining, furzed edge, squeezed
to thread or pressed under concrete. Free soil
absorbs weather, gives onto air. Dazed venturers
collapse across the kerb, settle among flung cans,
fireweed; verge gives us leave to lie low, soak
in a culvert, reflect the moon. Some of us bask
in dirtbowls; others hang out yellow rags,
welcome the bees. Plenty find wriggle-room
for mayhem, music, love-making. Like anywhere.
Alex Josephy lives in East Sussex, and sometimes in Italy. Her pamphlet Again Behold the Stars was a Cinnamon Press award winner, 2023. Other work includes Naked Since Faversham, Pindrop Press, 2020. Find out more on her website: www.alexjosephy.net
Note: an earlier version of this poem appeared in The Punch (India) in Oct 2020.