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Poem by Chris Kinsey

Chris Kinsey (pictured here) is one of the poets Eyewear believes deserves more attention for her unusual and often unexpectedly powerful poems.

She received an Arts Council of Wales writer’s award in 2000. This enabled her to give up her day job and focus on writing and rescuing greyhounds. She derives much inspiration from living a long time in a small town, and from Welsh landscapes.

Her poems have been widely published in magazines and anthologies, such as In the Criminal’s Cabinet & Reactions 3 & 4. Her first collection, Kung Fu Lullabies came out from Ragged Raven Press in 2004.


Sighting

We turn our backs
on window-shopping and sales
walk away from town.

Seven drakes, heads and necks
green from dipping the depths,
scull the slow bend.

A willow leans from pale chippings.
Old saw wounds are a quiver
of amber arrows.

At a gap in the alders
the weir makes water back flip.
We watch stones grow beards.

A whistle shrills us heron-still.
Before we tune to its signal
our eyes see a dart so swift

the beak pierces from turquoise flights,
draws us to our toes.
It pauses on a branch,

but the branch is a fired bow.
River-rush erases colours,
ripples make us squint and doubt.


poem by Chris Kinsey
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