the never-tired
\nthe awl and the auger
\nleather pressed through until the light showed
\nand continued behaviour that
\ntastes like lighter fluid
\nas if not you were not overly sleepless
\nas if not fortunate and symbolic
\nas if you could not be desecrated
\nlike all of us other
\nsacreds, jumping for proper money,
\nable to read signs that tell what us what indeed
\nthe penury should be like
\nwe don’t have a lens through which to view our behaviour as others see it
\nwe just have to IMAGINE
\nand then the good king wenceslas
\nlooked out and i dreamt that man flirted with me till he fell over drunk
\nand i slunk away, skittered in the pool of surplus shiraz,
\nburnt in the wicker basket set up for such things
\ni had another hand to hand just waiting in my pocket
\nbut now i have frequent ball aches without the balls to speak of
\nand such a lot of dripping drool over tooth and gum
\ngutted i can’t be with you tonight darling
\nfor your awl and augur and your continued behaviours
\nthe purse is empty again, look i took the name of you in vain
\ndear god look upon me kindly with your unknowable unsubstantial
\nunverifiable looks
\nand your hot sauce
\nbring this desecration back to life<\/p>\n
* Megszents \u00e9gtelen\u00c3\u00adthetetlens \u00e9gesked \u00e9seitek \u00e9rt (Hungarian)<\/em><\/p>\n also for those who have turned like counterrevolutionaries *<\/strong><\/p>\n also for those best pleased *\u00e1\u0192\u2019\u00e1\u0192\u0090\u00e1\u0192™\u00e1\u0192\u009d\u00e1\u0192\u0153\u00e1\u0192\u00a2\u00e1\u0192 \u00e1\u0192 \u00e1\u0192\u201d\u00e1\u0192\u2022\u00e1\u0192\u009d\u00e1\u0192\u0161\u00e1\u0192\u00a3\u00e1\u0192\u00aa\u00e1\u0192\u02dc\u00e1\u0192\u009d\u00e1\u0192\u0153\u00e1\u0192\u201d\u00e1\u0192 \u00e1\u0192\u201d\u00e1\u0192\u2018\u00e1\u0192\u00a3\u00e1\u0192\u0161\u00e1\u0192\u201d\u00e1\u0192\u2018\u00e1\u0192\u02dc\u00e1\u0192\u00a1\u00e1\u0192\u0153\u00e1\u0192\u0090\u00e1\u0192\u02dc\u00e1\u0192 \u00e1\u0192\u201d\u00e1\u0192\u2018\u00e1\u0192\u02dc\u00e1\u0192\u00a1\u00e1\u0192\u0090\u00e1\u0192\u2014\u00e1\u0192\u2022\u00e1\u0192\u02dc\u00e1\u0192\u00a1\u00e1\u0192\u0090\u00e1\u0192\u00aa (Georgian)<\/em><\/p>\n for those who were repeatedly unable to pick enough of small wood-sorrels in the past*<\/strong><\/p>\n for those of us repeatedly amiss *nebeprisiki\u00c5\u00a1kiakop\u00c5\u00absteliaudavusiems (Lithuanian) <\/em><\/p>\n to the least able to be making less understandable*<\/strong><\/p>\n it would be telling to here make an observation about being understandable *nejneznesrozumitel\u00c5\u02c6ov\u00c3\u00a1vateln\u00c4\u203aj\u00c5\u00a1\u00c3\u00admu (Czech)<\/em><\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> hasn’t calmed your brutal fish hook hands By Nia Davies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":71666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111968,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71164\/revisions\/111968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwith a monicker
\na halo uncertain
\nalso in the grave
\ntaste of salsify
\na chip off the old collectivised
\nsplitters gurning
\non white cream
\neach wrote a poem entitled \u2018dad’
\ncarry on childish
\na primer
\ncladdings etc
\nyou err on the err
\nscale of ten to one
\nscale of [sic]
\nand wonder, don’t wonder<\/p>\n
\nfor those with ears on fire and
\nthen the heat of the hands-out begging bowl night
\nin the past we used ourselves knottily
\nand burnished overcompensating
\nbureau-speak, safe-hands in the monetary shallows
\nwe go unchallenged inourselves we forget to look
\ninto those begging bowls deep enough
\nthen again the waning collective appetite for sorrel,
\nfor early-in-the-year green vegetable mass,
\nhasn’t calmed your brutal fish hook hands
\nand a surplus of mud is also there
\nwe took to asking for burnt greens but not clearly enough
\nwe got samphire and honey and a terrible hurt
\nit’s just one way to be amiss in this world,
\nthose of us hapless but with enough wood sorrel
\ndid know this once, with our pickings mealy and mouth-eyed,
\nwe’d be trying to clear woodland hurdles and sun-ache
\nwe’d try to be small enough to smell it<\/p>\n
\nnot understandably hurt or upset
\nnot a sentence where you can insert your sympathy easily
\nhe was understandably tempted
\nshe was rightly pissed off
\netc etc
\nto tell you about making myself understandable would take several lines of FLAT
\nprosaic twoddle like some of what you will encounter here
\ncommunication is not the aim of poetry
\npoetry is not the aim of communication
\nit gets in the way though somehow doesn’t it?
\nhappy morning, said the clock
\nthis is all just guess-work, said the sandfly
\ni didn’t make a mess of myself for this
\ni had to ask her – what is the aim?
\nwhat is the objective?
\nto communicate of course
\ni said i know that, i meant what is the communicated thing?
\nwhat are you trying to say?
\nshe said well the essential thing about us
\nis something we can’t really reveal to the public
\nso it has to be put into a very niche category
\nand they don’t understand that
\nso it’s best just to make something up
\nat the very least i said
\nbut we have to get it right she said
\nat the very least you should just put your best foot forward
\ni said, into the vague
\ninto the vague way we speak to one another
\nthere is probably only one or two friends
\ni will communicate this to anyway
\ni said, speak clearly, i said
\npay attention, what is it you are getting at?
\ni don’t understand,
\nwhy then, if you so say,
\nare you not at least able to put some language
\ninto some order and say it out loud?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/attachment-300x290.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nNia Davies<\/strong>‘s pamphlet Then Spree<\/em> came out from Salt in 2012. In 2014 she took over the editorship of the quarterly magazine Poetry Wales<\/em>. She also works on the international literature initiatives Literature Across Frontiers and Wales Literature Exchange. Her work has been published and translated widely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nand a surplus of mud is also there
\nwe took to asking for burnt greens but not clearly enough
\nwe got samphire and honey and a terrible hurt
\nit’s just one way to be amiss in this world,
\nthose of us hapless but with enough wood sorrel
\ndid know this once, with our pickings mealy and mouth-eyed,
\nwe’d be trying to clear woodland hurdles and sun-ache
\nwe’d try to be small enough to smell it<\/p>\n