Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 119, Volume 24 Number 3, January - February 1998.

Two Poems Will Francis

River

A river runs
quietly through sun and dust.
Pallid human smells and heat suspended.
Close air conceives a form, a man
squats by slow water in the turgid
swell of summer, smoking, smelling
beedi smoke.

Fulcrum of skies, an Indian
he turns his head and swings
white heavens, profusely spinning
on his sheer brow. Flesh rendered
down by sun and work to fit the
facets of the air, and eyes which
seem in motes to trace the grain
of earth, the tidal season's ebb.
A cobbler, perhaps, to sit on stony
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image