Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jim Paterson
A Curse
Shove it, that farewell
and the sky shimmering with frost
and the waves wrecking on the shore
I don’t care if it is basalt
by the furious firth
hard on hard.
And as for the getting there!
A mis-shapen day
when the sun was unintelligible
over a salt waste
where deserted horses
awaited riderless dreams
tumbled in whirls of sand.
The road lingered
not to arrive among the zombie
when fell the night
empty as a cur’s belly
howling howling.
Release that grip,
go your own way,
proven in fire, quenched in surge
and the sting of salt.
Talk to the hand,
stroll on,
I won’t shake on a dodge,
a busted deal to pack your duvet
against the cold.
Cold on the cliffs
brain bundled by stealth
and heavy by the beachhead
where the tide folds on itself,
turning away from us
and leaping the bank
and skank that still stands.
So, sod off.
I repeat. Sod off.
Even from that height
it’s like you hang
from the shallow pommel
of your corny heart.
Jim Paterson is a translator living in Perpignan who visits Scotland and Ireland. Recently published in City of Poets review 2024, Northwords, Gairfish and elsewhere. A frequent spoken word performer.
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