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I have come to hope that a Rack Press pamphlet may be a tiny gift-box of unusually good poems – Alison Brackenbury, PN Review
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Monday 23 March 2015

Poem of the Week: Damian Walford Davies

Today's Poem of the Week taken from one of the pamphlet collections launched this year by Rack Press is Commission by Damian Walford Davies from his collection Alabaster Girls which you can order here using Paypal.


Commission
Damian Walford Davies reading at last month's
launch in London

Suffolk, 1650

I was in the graveyard, islanded
by creeks, parsing deep botched

cuts that pass for epitaphs. 
Horses drummed their piss 

on clumps of woundwort – 
so loud, the troopers laying

statues on the fire turned to look.
Stare long enough, the tower’s

flintwork will bewilder you. Gilt
paint burns especially. He called me

from the porch, framed by gargoyles
and the Lamb, bitter ramsons

mixed with sweetish smoke.
My sergeant rose among the reeds,

a tan bird mewing in his gloves.
The church was cool; their eyes

were hammering at three angels
on the roof. I wrapped the balls

inside a paper patch and shot,
walked out decked in golden dust.


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