It doesn’t look like a finger it looks like a feather of broken glass
It doesn’t look like something to eat it looks like something eaten
It doesn’t look like an empty chair it looks like an old woman
searching in a heap of stones
It doesn’t look like a heap of stones it looks like an estuary where
the drifting filth is swept to and fro on the tide
It doesn’t look like a finger it looks like a feather with broken teeth
The spaces between the stones are made of stone
It doesn’t look like a revolver it looks like a convolvulus
It doesn’t look like a living convolvulus it looks like a dead one
KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY FRIENDS USE THEM ON
YOUR BITCHES OR
YOURSELVES BUT KEEP THEM OFF MY FRIENDS
The faces between the stones are made of bone
It doesn’t look like an eye it looks like a bowl of rotten fruit
It doesn’t look like my mother in the garden it looks like my father
when he came up from the sea covered in shells and tangle
It doesn’t look like a feather it looks like a finger with broken wings
It doesn’t look like the old woman’s mouth it looks like a handful
of broken feathers or a revolver buried in cinders
The faces beneath the stones are made of stone
It doesn’t look like a broken cup it looks like a cut lip
It doesn’t look like yours it looks like mine
BUT IT IS YOURS NOW
SOON IT WILL LOOK LIKE YOURS
AND ANYTHING YOU SEE WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU
London Bulletin, No. 2 (May 1938), 7.
(Hugh Sykes Davies)
More Poetry from Hugh Sykes Davies:
Hugh Sykes Davies Poems based on Topics: Garden, Space, Faces- Music in an Empty House (Hugh Sykes Davies Poems)
- "It doesn't look like a finger..." (Hugh Sykes Davies Poems)
- Poem ('In The Stump of The Old Tree...') (Hugh Sykes Davies Poems)
- Decline of Ph (Hugh Sykes Davies Poems)
- Sententi (Hugh Sykes Davies Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Faces Poems, Garden Poems, Space PoemsBased on Keywords: convolvulus, bitches
- One Day And Another: A Lyrical Eclogue - Part I (Madison Julius Cawein Poems)
- Parisina (Lord George Gordon Byron Poems)
- The Golden Legend: VI. The School Of Salerno (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems)
- Of The Nature Of Things: Book II - Part 03 - Atomic Forms And Their Combinations (Lucretius Poems)
- The School Of The Heart. Lesson The Second. (Henry Alford Poems)