Three Poems

by John Pring

One Week Later

threshing tide                   sweeps

shakes across the field                cherry

leaves yielding                                                

                                like civilians

                swooning           

to gunfire                            coal

hooves drum

across the roof                applause

for the smallest                               refuge                  unburied

hands                   make   

a meal                                 cut fruit brown

-ed with sunlight            

                                prayer stitched behind

the lips                 to seal them

Aria

think of relapse / and return

to language / wind singing

through the neck / poured

moon / doubled with rainlight

oversoft / the body

opening / the mouth

the world / the wound

Missing in Action

Curved wall of ocean

swells violently

around the atoll

of the iris

What a thing to be

opened, rifled

through, blue silence:

a hymn of grief

Quickly mother breaks

the quiet, her voice

echoing through bone

like a bullet

BIO: John Pring is a poet and author based in the UK, where he is a Master's candidate at the University of Sussex. He has work published or upcoming in POETICS, Santa Clara Review, The Passionfruit Review, B O D Y, Meniscus, Oroboro, The Talon Review, and others.