October’s Poem of the Month comes from Michelle O’Sullivan’s forthcoming collection This One High Field
Three-fold
ON METAPHORS
I ought to have thought
better of calling in again.
I could have let go
where we were,
the afternoon expiring,
the sun on the ruin,
those untroubled words
that fell from the sky’s idiom.
My thoughts wearied at the task.
They are so faithless.
BARRACKLIKE
Sniper quiet.
A reservoir of noise
zeroes to a pinpoint.
More thought than threat,
the weather’s vexed: heat
plays at rain-strings.
The faculty of the eye,
practised at impressions,
takes the view.
A fatigue of blue withstands.
Even this sky fails
to command you.
FORGE
A return to naught.
This breathless little world
is not made for divers like you.
What perishes here
goes.
Even the bones.
Sometimes it’s true:
fact refuses the insistence
of certain facts.
from This One High Field (October 2018)
by Michelle O’Sullivan
