Michael Longley
Double-Barrel
Soft Target
I am a soft target, head
And shoulders, a hair’s breadth
Now that the lines intersect
And you nail me to the sky.
Sea-burial
We are sailors now, and grant them
— The dead men in their coffins,
The skeletons in our cupboard —
A sea-burial: our sheets
Pulled up over them, their bodies
Launched from beneath our flag.
Voice-box
An animal stirs in your throat:
To unlock that particular cage
Would be to set howling the cats
And dogs of the entire district.
Leavetakings
I jumble our souls like anagrams
Until leavetakings on the staircase,
Dressing-gowns in the cold scullery
Spell out my one apotheosis:
A foot in the door for ever, no
Belongings but what I stand up in.
Close-up
A question of connections:
Of face to face always, or
Head to head on the pillow,
These distances, a bad line.
Stretch-marks
I take on your stretch-marks,
The slack skin at belly
And breast, and would welcome
Other stigmata, wear
As blush or wide naevus
Menses, women’s complaints.
Double-barrel
You solve my body like a riddle:
All of my ships in the one bottle,
A double-barrel: the answer up-
Side down at the bottom of the page.
Page(s) 14-15
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