Poetry at Sangam

Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.

THREE HORSES by Janice Pariat

Beyond sun-touched heath,
cloven and murmuring, icy
stream; that ruined, paraparetic,
castle, we trudge as old pilgrims.

Under – song of mud, maddened
oak leaves, while scent of late
Hawthorne throws scurrilous
surprises of edging summer.

At hilltop, before sweet sweep
of slopes to massacred boulders,
Paleolithic burial ground of kings
and farmers – three horses, watching.

Aligned in a painting; heavy-hooved
wanderers, wet fish-eye reflections
deep and dark as graves. Something
in me, slow tap root, moves beyond

this gaping, silver fence. Brown arcs
lower; long, grassy breaths. Wanton
creatures, him and me, we breathe
into each other’s faces, and struggle,

to find the faint memory of love,
and freedom. What it means to be
unheld, tethered only to the tragic
sound of wind in open spaces.

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