Two Poems by Patrick Williamson

Print

nowt
ferret-face

to fox
pads
bracken
no, no, no

without-eye

print

no-mans land
voice
breath
to wit, me

break cover

track



The flip side

The pot boiled over, I burned myself
in the shadows, in that oblivion
seeking memory. It all tasted bitter sweet
being inaction - shifting pebbles, sight
a distant horizon
we crossed over
to the beyond, I questioned
plucking layers from the people I met
until nothing but air was left
my hot air - trash, waster, split & spliff
this memo is good for the can, Jack-
subtract the groups and the personal
add a touch of 'thusiasm and some ecstatic
and it all totals good material
for a memory-black out
one giant blank               thing unheard of
unwritten



Patrick Williamson is an English poet and translator currently living near Paris. He has translated Tunisian poet Tahar Bekri and Quebecois poet Gilles Cyr. In 1995 and 2003, he was invited to the Festival International de Poésie at Trois-Rivières in Québec. He is the editor of Quarante et un poètes de Grande-Bretagne (Ecrits des Forges/Le Temps de Cerises, 2003) and editor and translator of The Parley Tree, Poets from French-speaking Africa and the Arab World (Arc Publications, 2012). Latest poetry collections: Locked in, or out?, Red Ceilings Press, and Bacon, Bits, & Buriton, Corrupt Press, both in 2011.