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Dawn in mid-air
Aragonese morning is a vulture spiralling
to heaven in slow circles on Arabian headwinds
as time kaleidoscopes around the alpinist
trapped at a crossroads on a granite ledge,
acquiescing now, recalling a friend’s words
in the café with blue-chequered tablecloths,
aware that to fall would be a sweet release
but that while letters remain unanswered
fingers must quest for cracks in the wall,
no retreat, just minor course corrections.
Three Peaks
Pen y Ghent’s a coke-addled narcissist,
the aspiring Matterhorn of the Dales,
he’s considering surgery: maybe a zipwire
or a summit café, he’s got Big Plans,
be headhunted by Lakeland any day now,
he’s a hill that’s Really Going Somewhere.
Ingleborough yawns cat-like in the sun,
spreading her wide thighs in the warmth
as she smiles at little brother’s yapping,
awake to how best frustrate. The manchild
can sell himself to ramblers all he likes,
they’ll all swing around to her in the end.
Whernside averts his tired eyes again,
his recent breakdown surely no surprise
when ever the bridge between his siblings.
His gaze runs north to hidden hollows
where dappled snow lies late into the year
and even a weary brae might take a breath.
If you need me, I’m resigning
Lines down, snow inbound
across the railway arches,
leaving the city on foot.
A letter waits on a chrome desk
and another on a bedside table,
If you need me, I’m resigning.
Hauling an ex-army rucksack
between culverts and scrapyards,
bound for any life but this one,
going to push on so long and far
that old boots will expire,
the neighbourhood will gentrify
and no-one will remember
either presence or shadow
of a stranger passing through.
Laurence Morris works in academic libraries and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His poems explore shifting perceptions of people and place in the era of climate change and have been published in 192, Blackbox Manifold (Issue #29), Confluence, Dodging the Rain, High Window, Ink Sweat and Tears, Scottish Mountaineer, Snakeskin and elsewhere.
Copyright © 2025 by Laurence Morris, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
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