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 PN Review 149, Volume 29 Number 3, January - February 2003.

Five Poems Robert Saxton

The Spider

An angel's poison squirted through night skies
sets the heart thumping in a blink of stars.
Tatters of cobwebs are my only scars.

From fusty stables trots the fly-blown foal
whose charm is to forget its sickliest meal.
We cannot be the one whose pain we feel,

nor housetrain elders in their muddled socks,
one slipping westward as the other wakes.
But why not love them for each other's sakes?

And why not love the spider like the lamb
whose work is wool, of which your love's a groom?
And why not weave your life-line on its loom?


Safe Dreams

Though you cover me safe
with a hat, slice of sleep,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image