Martin Malone

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Barbury Castle


Meet me at the earthworks

                in the small hours on the hill.

Up there, above your childhood,

                at the swing-door of first light

as - mouthful of stars -

                another time-laden night

does its excuse-me with the dawn.


Here, beyond the tidemark

                of Swindon’s dirty ochre,

power up the heart’s deep electric

                and bring to me your darkness.

Let me reach towards its livewire

                its larksong static, earth your now

in the harebells, ox eye, horseshoe vetch.


Meet me at the earthworks:

                murus gallicus, univallate,

gate-gone to cowslip, chalkhill blue,

                bolt-shot to harebell and to you.

And, to you, I too am wide open;

                under the ages’ weight of starlight

and slow time; waiting for the day.


                                                                 from Larksong Static: Selected Poems 2005-2020 (Hedgehog Poetry, 2020)












Martin Malone lives in north-east Scotland. He has published 3 poetry collections: The Waiting Hillside (Templar, 2011), Cur (Shoestring, 2015) and The Unreturning (Shoestring 2019). Larksong Static: Selected Poems 2005-2020 will be published by Hedgehog Poetry in October 2020. In addition, he has published 4 pamphlets: 17 Landscapes (Bluegate Books), Prodigals (The Black Light Engine Room), Mr. Willett’s Summertime (Poetry Salzburg), Shetland Lyrics (Hedgehog). Poems from these and his other work have been published in a variety of journals; such as Stand, Strix, Poetry Ireland Review, Acumen, Agenda, Poetry Salzburg Review, Long Poem Magazine, Magma, The Moth, Gutter, Butcher’s Dog, 14 Magazine, Lighthouse and Bare Fiction. He reviews for The Interpreter’s House, Stand, Causeway/ Cabhsair and Poetry Ireland Review. An Associate Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at Aberdeen University, he has a PhD in poetry from Sheffield University.


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