John Lindley
Ghost Train: The Pike, Long Beach, California
There's a sense of belonging
whatever your place
if you've been there for more than a moment
and I've been here for moments untold
with a horse hair necktie
and a fool's gold glow,
watching the cars from out
of my left eye, right eye, left.
I've heard the two seaters
rattle the curves like Winchesters reloading.
I've seen lips together,
hands in blouses, in the dark of the car
and in a young girl's skirt
and, swaying in the dark,
it don't do nothing to me.
I keep a paper skinned hand
over my shrivelled cock
but nothing's stirring.
I'm in a place that reads through
lipstick and paint and skin and all
to the scaffold of life itself
and if I had one good hand to raise
I'd raise it now and say STOP.
Take one good look.
Don't I scare you half to death?
Mirrors and strings they'd say.
A pity. Half dead
they'd meet me halfway.
whatever your place
if you've been there for more than a moment
and I've been here for moments untold
with a horse hair necktie
and a fool's gold glow,
watching the cars from out
of my left eye, right eye, left.
I've heard the two seaters
rattle the curves like Winchesters reloading.
I've seen lips together,
hands in blouses, in the dark of the car
and in a young girl's skirt
and, swaying in the dark,
it don't do nothing to me.
I keep a paper skinned hand
over my shrivelled cock
but nothing's stirring.
I'm in a place that reads through
lipstick and paint and skin and all
to the scaffold of life itself
and if I had one good hand to raise
I'd raise it now and say STOP.
Take one good look.
Don't I scare you half to death?
Mirrors and strings they'd say.
A pity. Half dead
they'd meet me halfway.
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