Elizabeth Bewick
Visiting Day
A crowded room, stale smell, those patient souls
on rows of chairs, waiting to die, or sleep,
holding their crumpled cards with anxious looks,
no way to show their gratitude but weep.
Each locked within herself, no way to speak
the hopes and fears that wake the mind to thought,
yet wordless comfort for each other's hell
and childish pleasure for a moment caught.
They chatter without sense, and cluster round
the curtained window, watch the streaming rain,
wave to each other's friends, and settle down
in two straight rows of apathy again.
And we, how can we bear to leave them there,
knowing that out of sense is out of mind?
A jester babbles wildly of green fields,
and in that room a life is left behind.
on rows of chairs, waiting to die, or sleep,
holding their crumpled cards with anxious looks,
no way to show their gratitude but weep.
Each locked within herself, no way to speak
the hopes and fears that wake the mind to thought,
yet wordless comfort for each other's hell
and childish pleasure for a moment caught.
They chatter without sense, and cluster round
the curtained window, watch the streaming rain,
wave to each other's friends, and settle down
in two straight rows of apathy again.
And we, how can we bear to leave them there,
knowing that out of sense is out of mind?
A jester babbles wildly of green fields,
and in that room a life is left behind.
Page(s) 10
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