Nigel King grew up in Essex but has lived in the north of England for most of his adult life, and has called Huddersfield home for more than 25 years. He has had poems published in Poetry Salzburg Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, and Algebra of Owls (amongst others). His pamphlet What I Love About Daleks was published by Calder Valley Poetry in 2017. Currently he is part-way through an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Garden Archaeology

There’s enough willow pattern
for a whole plate, a big oval one
the farmer’s wife would carry to Sunday lunch
piled with potatoes. Amongst the dirt
there’s matchbox cars, a George V penny
rubbed smooth, the torso of Captain America.

There’s brickwork still in its courses,
Victorian red, crumbling at the corners.
There’s a massive stone lintel I can barely shift.
I’m on my knees, trowel in hand,
freeing it from roots, compacted soil.
I day-dream Mycenae, Hattusas, Troy.

And what will we leave for others to unearth?
The curve of borders we cut from paddock.
A ritual circle laid in granite setts.
A fallen birdbath. A skeletal fox.
The cat’s collar he shrugged himself out of.
Its useless warning bell.

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The Earth Will Try To Kill You

The Earth will try to kill you.
It will gore you with the bull’s horn,
rake you with the tiger’s claw,
crush you with the mammoth’s foot.

You’ll freeze on the winter steppe,
your lips crack in summer drought.
Storms will sweep you into the river’s
spate. Swamp will suck you down.

The Earth does not care about you.
It does not lay out its beauties
for your pleasure. Do not fool yourself:
it sustains you by accident.

Now watch what I do on this rock.
I take the ochre, the charcoal.
I mark out lines that make them live:
auroch, elk, bear, wolf, man.

My paintings do not net their souls,
will not pull them to our spears.
I draw to see them better. No magic.
I draw to see myself.

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In The Salvage Yard

A Statue of Liberty stands
barricaded behind sash window frames.
Across the path, a host
of galvanised watering cans
has gathered, roses held upwards
as if in supplication.

Two gatepost lions
(paint flaking from cast concrete)
snarl at a stack of patio chairs
that teeters towards them.
A faithful stone hound
turns his back on the mess.

As darkness falls
the watering cans advance.