Austrian black and weightless as a toy,
The Glock 9 almost floats in my palm
Like a water pistol given to a boy.
The risk of real violence brings a strange calm.

Firecracker-whiffs of cordite fill the hall.
I set sights with ruthless gaze into the heat.
Gold shells flick up, clink onto concrete
Or glint like ingots pinging against the wall.

It twitches like a cat that then stills
To gather strength. An anviled lead vessel
Bursts the weeping eye of paper moon, spills
No blood but gives the cold feel of a kill.

It must be something more than mere game:
Men mimicking murder, laying claim
To hunts and wars that some believe to be
Their legacy. A shotgun thumps a galaxy

Into the dark shape of a human torso.
I wonder what such force is really for,
As, deafened and glad in my singing seafloor
Of skull, I exit to dusk’s blunt red glow.

Edinburgh’s oldest literary journal and released three times a year, The Edinburgh Review has been transforming the critical landscape since 1802.

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New Issue, 133: Dark Things as Bright

In the current issue, Aaron Kelly questions what it means to be “Living in the Real World” in the eponymous article and our prose and poetry contributors offer the chance to sink into the unreality of imaginary realms. Issue 133 is full of fresh and feisty fiction from Ewan Morrison, Ruth Thomas, Glenn Patterson and Gwendoline Riley, poetry by Paul Muldoon, Ernest Hilbert, Jen Hadfield, David Wheatley and many more, articulate articles and shrewd reviews. Cover design by David Gilchrist and image from Finlay Cramb.