Author: Vernon Scannell

They did not expect this. Being neither wise nor brave And wearing only the beauty of youth’s season They took […]

They should not have left him there alone, Alone that is except for the cat. He was only nine, not […]

He killed his wife at night. He had tried once or twice in the daylight But she refused to die. […]

Silver Wedding The party is over and I sit among The flotsam that its passing leaves, The dirty glasses and […]

The naked hunter’s fist, bunched round his spear, Was tight and wet inside with sweat of fear; He heard behind […]

My son aged three fell in the nettle bed. ‘Bed’ seemed a curious name for those green spears, That regiment […]

And now another autumn morning finds me With chalk dust on my sleeve and in my breath, Preoccupied with vague, […]

The appetite which leads him to her bed Is not unlike the lust of boys for cake Except he knows […]

That one small boy with a face like pallid cheese And burnt-out little eyes could make a blaze As brazen, […]

The bar he went inside was not A place he often visited; He welcomed anonymity; No one to switch inquisitive […]

Unlovely city, to which few tourists come With squinting cameras and alien hats; Left under a cloud by those who […]

Waiting for her in the usual bar He finds she’s late again. Impatience frets at him, But not the fearful, […]

The unrelated paragraphs of morning Are forgotten now; the severed heads of kings Rot by the misty Thames; the roses […]

Sleepless I lay last night and watched the slow Procession of the men who wear my clothes: First, the grey […]

THE SENTENCE Perhaps I can make it plain by analogy. Imagine a machine, not yet assembled, Each part being quite […]

It is a curious experience And one you”re bound to know, though probably In other realms than that of literature, […]