Mandy Pannett runs an Arts Cafe in East Sussex and is involved in working with local writing groups, advising on and leading many sessions on poetry appreciation and writing. She also leads creative writing workshops for children and adults in various parts of the country. Her first collection of poems, Boy’s Story, was issued on CD with original music between some of the poems. Two further collections of her poetry – Bee Purple and Frost Hollow – have been published by Oversteps Books and her work has been widely published in magazines such as Tears in the Fence, Fire, Osiris, The Journal, Envoi, The Interpreter’s House, Coffee House, Other Poetry, South, Cadenza and online in Nth Position and Ink-Sweat-and-Tears.

Quelle: poetry p f

Picture in Grey

There’s the sense of a river behind a low wall; footsteps on leaf-fall, grey light through the mist. There are hours ahead for the unshed rain. This is an island of pavements and derelict blocks; a low landscape, no colour here. Nothing to do but wait for the lamps to be lit.

Flies in the buttermilk whispers the song. Something is scratching and digs. On the Embankment a stone lion is lost in the fog. His paw is upturned. He begs.

I detest my past and anyone else’s mutters Magritte as he sketches the lion. Thinks about gunfire and troops moving in. Adds a man by the parapet with his back to us; he is staring over the edge. Gives him black wings from the shoulder blades down to the ground. Considers a title: Pea soup, spleen of Paris, Philadelphia, mal du pays… Thickens the fog.

Bats skitter out as old lamps are lit. There are gaps in the masonry and a chill wind. A pigeon lies dead in a scatter of leaves. There are hours ahead for the rain.

published online in Ink-Sweat-Tears, March 2008