Spring

Snow keeps falling though April’s begun.  The city
is buried while we sleep in our beds
and the council’s run out of molasses and grit.

People move through the streets like hospital patients
out for a smoke or a breath of fresh air,
the onset of chilblains cracking their skin.  

The park is bereft of hopeful spring tulips
and so are the verges and vases on sideboards.  

There’s just enough power for a couple more weeks
what then?  We’ll start to burn tables and chairs I suppose.  

A family in crampons takes the road into town
for what’s left in the shops, their faces are stung

by the wind from the lake, where anglers in pin-stripes
crouch over the ice, watching the city the other way up.



*Martin Figura's work ranges from the humour of Boring The Arse off Young People to the dark subject matter of his Ted Hughes Award shortlisted collection and show Whistle.   He won the 2010 Hamish Canham Prize.  Find out more here.





Taking Notice after a Long Dark Night
 
 The dew is not yet burned
 from the orchard grass—
 
 Crows range the open sky
 on easy wings—
 
 To the north,
 a chain saw pitch-shifting
 gnars a tune—
 
 The forsythia is yellow, the lawn,
 salt-crusted with Spring Beauties—
 
 A wasp dangles by—
 
 To the north,
 a great conifer falls, sputtering
 like firecrackers—
 
 I raise my coffee mug, greet
 the acrid bite—
 
 How clear, how crisp the air!



*Larry Kimmel is a US poet.  He holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Pittsburgh University, and has worked at everything from steel mills to libraries.  Recent books are Blue Night & the inadequacy of long-stemmed roses, and The Piercing Blue of Sirius.