******

The High Window is proud to make available the following previously unpublished poem by Ken Head, a distinguished and greatly undervalued poet. The editor would like to thank Margaret Head for her assistance in providing this text, which she found amongst Ken’s unhpublished work. Ken dated his final draft of ‘One Foot In Charon’s Boat’ 11th December, 2012. It was inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s ‘Massacre of the Innocents‘, which was itself inspired by contemporary acts of repression in The Spanish Netherlands.

*****

Ken Head: One Foot In Charon’s Boat
after Pieter Bruegel the Elder

1:
He’d sooner torch whole villages than miss a chance
to flush out heretics, that’s what their king
told the world, why he sent Black Alba,
his witchfinder, to hunt down renegade priests.
A dangerous time to seem out of step, safer
to lie doggo, take no risks, trust nobody,
not…

Penultimate day of Paul Brookes’ challenge. You can see the cloud photographs that inspired this poem here.

Heavy sky

How can we bear to raise our eyes
to the oceans and icefields above our heads,
knowing the immensity of blue and white
worlds washing from horizon to horizon,
where winds blow with feathers in their wings?

Knowing, we watch instead the ground
and where we tread, fixed on self,
the sky too heavy, pregnant with import,
omens, reflected wisdoms to heed.

We tread on broken shells,
content in our bliss.

You can never get a cup of tea large enough, or a book long enough to suit me

C.S. Lewis

Winter is setting in and despite the mild weather, it’s making me want to curl up in the old armchair, put the reading light on and listen to the rain lashing the window as I disappear into a good book. Here are five books I’ve read this year that suit a Sunday afternoon of cosied up reading.

Much With Body

Polly Atkin

Poetry

Find it here, at the Seren Books Website: Seren Website

If you’re familiar with Polly’s work you’ll know how her poems fold you into them, how they open worlds. If you ever get a chance to see her read, do it, don’t hesitate, do it. I’ve been lucky enough to have her read as part of a course I ran and double lucky in that she has…

I have only just learned from the Bloodaxe Books website that the poet David Scott passed away earlier this year. I take the opportunity here to post a review that I wrote on the appearance of Beyond the Drift, New and Selected Poems. The review was first published in TheNorth in 2015. .Here is a link to the poet’s page on the Blooaxe Books website:

https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/david-scott

*****

*****

David Scott’s Beyond the Drift, New and Selected Poems reviewed by David Cooke

Beyond the Drift, New and Selected Poems by David Scott. £14.99. Bloodaxe Books. ISBN: 9781780371047

David Scott’s Beyond the Drift, New and Selected Poems brings together seventy poems written since Piecing Together (2005) alongside the contents of two earlier collections and the new work he included in his previous Selected Poems (1998). Until his recent retirement, Scott worked as an Anglican vicar in various parishes and…