796
Believe. I’m drizzle spotting yew branches at dusk,
this morning’s coffee steam,
TV’s flickering screen.
See, my eyes pattern spilt charcoal powder,
graphite, drawn magnetic filings.
Mexican orange-blossom in my buttonhole,
more real than I am.
String tie, dandelion hair
brushed to one side with soap,
outlawed mechanism’s ghost.
Pupils are coals
glimmering polished grates.
Do you get that needled feeling
the one usually reserved
for returned lost property?
Mexican orange-blossom’s more real …
My words - fogged docks,
pleasure-craft’s mulched hulk,
bow legged dogs
trotting rain glassed streets,
bags lounging against station benches,
lilac scarf crucified on iron railings,
unopened letters, all final demands.
Am I your snub reflection?
Squat fingers grip a placard
figured 796, is this
your prison number? Or only
for tax purposes?
More real than you are
my buttonhole’s Mexican orange blossom
For Mary Byrne
Page(s) 4
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