Pelt (by Michael Symmons Roberts)

Griffin Prize for Excellence In Poetry, The (2001 - 0)

Original Text

Michael Symmons Roberts, Corpus (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004). This poem is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site (from a volume on the 2005 International Shortlist).

1I found the world’s pelt

2nailed to the picture-rail

3of a box-room in a cheap hotel.

4So that’s why rivers dry to scabs,

5that’s why the grass weeps every dawn,

6that’s why the wind feels raw:

7the earth’s an open wound,

8and here, its skin hangs

9like a trophy, atrophied beyond all

10taxidermy, shrunk into a hearth rug.

11Who fleeced it?

12No record in the guest-book.

13No-one paid, just pocketed the blade

14and walked, leaving the bed

15untouched, TV pleasing itself.

16Maybe there was no knife.

17Maybe the world shrugs off a hide

18each year to grow a fresh one.

19That pelt was thick as reindeer,

20so black it flashed with blue.

21I tried it on, of course, but no.

RPO poem Editors

Ian Lancashire

RPO Edition

2011