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 115, Volume 23 Number 5, May - June 1997.

Two Poems John Gallas


Turbulent Tipp: Good friday night

Two hundred sober cars, as if to make
especial favour of this special day,
dammed all down the double-yellow-lines
that armed the church like sulphur tried with rain.
I heard a hymn inside. An aeroplane
drew sadly through the clouds. The Philistines
danced in pigwhite shoes and hail the grey
hard-High, and kept the petrol pumps awake.

The other street was snowing where I saw
the walls all touched with music and the dark
inside. My shoes were wet. All sung and gone
to luck or something else. The sun went blue
and bands of weather yawed like judgements through
the clouds. Hide or know them. Iceslops shone
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image