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 Stav Poleg's Banquet Stanley Moss In a concluding conversation, with Neilson MacKay John Koethe Poems Gwyneth Lewis shares excerpts from 'Nightshade Mother: a disentangling' John Redmond revisits 'Henneker's Ditch'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 71, Volume 16 Number 3, January - February 1990.

Four Poems Michael Vince

The Cave of Androutsos

Reaching far back in darkness the cave appears
To be a small blind hole, a mouth that sneers,
An eye half closed. Slow horsemen out of range
Make spurts of dust, which settle and then change
To echoing gunshots. In early light the plain
Mists and becomes the sea, or gleams with rain,
Alters its features, twists its trees with snow,
Then blossoms red in villages below.
The cave stares blankly down, surrounded by
The hard immensities of stone and sky.

A cave makes images. Inside the frame
A bearded man sits motionless; his name
Is Edward John Trelawney. He is not
Posing it seems, for he has just been shot
Twice from behind, once shattering his jaw.
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image