Jack Alun
1.
(mountain pastoral)
glass morning
ice tranquillity
lake scoop
over birthmark
mountains
slow pink rags
of ripped up cloud
high azure
still buzzards
trace a vortex
punctuating
parataxis
trees/bushes
of shrill vibrato
dark avalanche
shadow slope
cowbells drift
dulling hollow
brown goats
full uddered
down a dusty track
light into heat
old van potholes
grey fumes
up a knotted road
hacked slate
cuneiformity to
roofs of houses
blear frame
in a flake shade
ruffled figure
fleshy from long sleep
bemused
bone heavy
with permutation
2.
(weather report)
sun pearl in ochre sky
grey underwater light
heat in rivulets
yellow grass browning
vine leaves grovelling
with a parchment thirst
blue prophecy in the firework lavender
birds are hesitant
geraniums bleed
lizards desert
only hibiscus
indomitable
in stupid certainty
confusion in air suggests
nodding the purple
heads of buddleia
ravelling swallowtails
in tangled flight
complicating bindweed
rumpus at bass note of the day
the hinge between light and night
but no blind hope
no revelation’s flash
no knee-bend piety –
a fattening contrail
demystifies the high
3.
(notes from on the ground)
“see the pale hare pursued
by dogs, the bristling boar bolt
from the maize, pick walnuts by the side
of lanes, pull chestnuts from their pricking
pods, finger the figs that burst
blood, gather grapes from the blue
bitter vineyard, coax a brandy
from a bruise of plums, be suffocated
in mist, blinded by a too clear light,
taste apples more red than alive”—
or so the story goes —but
no smug hibernatory conclusion
full-bellied reflective
just dry leaves chill mornings
winds sharpening
and instinct that sick sense
scrolling through the downloads
of quasi-content
4.
(fauna)
thaw the big bird into being
sculpt feather bleak and talon
on the crooked arm of a still tree
already present — in the
grass not breathing
sun under grey muffle
snow beneath the slashed
veins of bramble
hedgerow in contortion
and the agony of the arthritic wood
here
only the soon dead eye
can catch the silence of wing
unfurl
maybe it’s the cold sweat of the season
that makes the face burn and fingers
numb and mind’s eye fix
on the rictus of the bird’s beak
or maybe it’s the ankles’ twist and crack
across the ribs of this picked-clean land
Jack Alun was born in Cardiff, Wales. Reviews for Shearsman magazine (as John Couth) and conducts interviews for Argotist online. Published widely in print magazines and web journals; in process of compiling first collection and completing novel. Currently lives and works in France.