Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Tim Parksin conversation with Natalia Ginzburg
(PN Review 49)
Next Issue Hal Coase 'Ochre Pitch' Gregory Woods 'On Queerness' Kirsty Gunn 'On Risk! Carl Phillips' Galina Rymbu 'What I Haven't Written' translated by Sasha Dugdale Gabriel Josipovici 'No More Stories' Valerie Duff-Strautmann 'Anne Carson's Wrong Norma'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
PN Review 276
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from Poetry Nation 4 Number 4, 1975.

Three Poems Robert Nye


A VOW TO DARKNESS

Darkness, I vow to you only that you are dark.
I have seen them blistering your eyelids with their white wafer
Who curse you, thinking they bless themselves.

As for me I knew you mostly in a bathroom
Where devils at their solipsist devotions
Strangled each other with soapy fingers, boasting
There is such company in hell!


GOING TO THE DOGS

To choose a trap I'd count the numerals
Inside the cap I wore at races
When none of my dogs won, or came in second.
Numbers and colours equally confuse me.
The hare ran true to form, but could not please me.
I barked in discontinuous antitheses.
Until I cried: If I confined myself to error
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image