After Akhmatova
The purple marks he left
Have faded from my mind, the visions
In my head. There is a sea mist
Today, and the shadows of birds
On the water.
I can hear the shrill gannets
From the stacks, their ancient shapes
Hidden in the fog. The fulmars
Stand in the air close to us and call.
I was picking faded flowers on the cliffs -
Seapink and tiny spring squill.
Just now two puffins landed on the grass
With fish-filled beaks, and scuttled past.
I want it back, the real world,
To touch and grasp, blinded as I am -
Still I am healed, I have been cured
With departed love’s icy calm.
Have faded from my mind, the visions
In my head. There is a sea mist
Today, and the shadows of birds
On the water.
I can hear the shrill gannets
From the stacks, their ancient shapes
Hidden in the fog. The fulmars
Stand in the air close to us and call.
I was picking faded flowers on the cliffs -
Seapink and tiny spring squill.
Just now two puffins landed on the grass
With fish-filled beaks, and scuttled past.
I want it back, the real world,
To touch and grasp, blinded as I am -
Still I am healed, I have been cured
With departed love’s icy calm.
Page(s) 20
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The