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 275
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 46, Volume 12 Number 2, November - December 1985.

Two Poems Bill Manhire

ONLOOKERS: A STORY

The plastic bags
are filled with water
and the small bruised fish

swim there, swung from hand
to hand above the footpath
like the lyrical bits

towards the ends of chapters
plagued by the great outdoors: there
above and beyond them are

the wide blue streets without function,
the rambling man who suddenly remembers
his address minus, alas, the name

of the relevant city. He is probably not
inside anything, this man, not even
a story. Probably the action
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image