Sentinel Poetry (Online) #38 The International Journal of Poetry &
Graphics Monthly ISSN 1479-425X
Cathy Anne
Stevens
Weighted
No balls, nor chains are locking down
my legs today-
Here and now; this place contains no bars nor fetters,
Yet every ton of every inch of air bears down
In dull and solid pressure on my creaking limbs.
I am not free; concern’s ivy tendrils
slither
About my ankles, shackling me to the dun earth-
Some years ago I grew too old to fly and now
I’m locked to the ground. A shocking waste
of magic;
Trapped in the everyday. Freedom filtered away,
Left with plain flesh
and a dream of freewheeling skies.
…One meagre way to catch a precious
glimpse of space,
My wings, my escape lies behind night’s
rest-locked eyes.
Cathy Anne
Stevens won the Sentinel Poetry Bar Challenge (November 2005) on the theme of
Freedom written as a Grossblank.
