"Murray is the best kind of literary biographer" – The Financial Times.
For more information about the books of Nicholas Murray
click HERE and access his website
Winner of the 2015 Basil Bunting Award for poetry

Wednesday, 5 October 2022

The Prime Minister Regrets by Nicholas Murray


The Prime Minister Regrets (October 2022)


That smoking gun, 
warm in my hand,
and the scarlet pool
on the tiled floor;

the white shirt spattered
and the mute stillness
of the cold corpse
might seem to some a proof

(now that you mention it)
of culpable wrong-doing.
But context is important here
and all is not what it seems.

I had no idea that the raised gun
and the pulled trigger
might result in such a scene.
Believe me, sincerely.

Do not rush to judgement,
or call me an arrogant oaf
whose lease is too long extended
who lies, easily, as others breathe

until the truth seems a word
light as an autumn leaf
that falls in a bright spiral
of papery flight, prettily.



No comments: