Anticks by DW Evans (Lucent Dreaming Issue 9)

Due to limited control of our formatting on posts, the formatting of the following poem is incorrect.

For the hawthorn in May she takes the cinder path
down to the Winning.
This morning is a fine morning.
The ragman’s carts stand idle; piebald horses
graze unharnessed in a narrow wedge of paddock.

Little Burn is giddy, fast flowing over the bones
of September’s slaughter, broken bricks, pebbles,
busy, busy bringing tittle tattle –
storms in the hills,
bringing mad tales to the calm lowland –
is so full of gossip,
like a tarn on the fell
where a sheep bloats and bobs,
like Boann mistook
for a lump of Roman stone
and
a child’s yellow boat, the latest
lovely drowned thing
sped down steam slick as waking eels
until stones sat up and now is sunk
and now is home for minnows.

Whickering and bird song. A car coughs too ill to travel.
A drunk stirs in a stable, spits, shies shocked by the stab of light
raking through the hay.
Nothing else competes with her humming
her splashing, her chanting –
except perhaps the song of insects amazed at wings.

Ripe wild garlic tans in the sun, and shouts its woodland
whereabouts for everyone’s notice. And the trough by the ford
is bewitched: it brims, it spills, it never empties.

Mid-stream she stands, feet apart, a priestess stance
(she likes to think), hands cupped, palms up –
stands on the brink – water falling over lips
of dun coloured bedrock – hands bloodless as the blossom.
Punch-hole petals drift like frosty breath, gather, niche and socket,
bank and fall. A warm blizzard blanching Little Burn.
She rubs her stomach
certain she’s caught a dose of Spring:
netted the awakening.
This year. Surely? It touched her. Certain.
Hopeful and alone in Little Burn, this charade can be misunderstood.

Buy issue 9 today.

Lucent Dreaming is an independent creative writing magazine publishing beautiful, imaginative and surreal short stories, poetry and artwork from emerging authors and artists worldwide. Subscribe to Lucent Dreaming now, support us on Patreon and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

DW Evans was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. Study and work took him south to London, Brighton and eventually Jersey. He won the Alan Jones Memorial Prize in 2019 and 2020, and was shortlisted twice for Ó Bhéal’s Five Words International Poetry Competition, his work was also highly commended in Acumen’s first international competition. His poems have appeared in the Frogmore Papers, Proverse Mingled Voices and the A3 Review.
@DWEvans4 | davidwevans6