Shut down
Move that chair to another room,
Throw out the old sofa,
Stained ten years ago, some
Late night incident and
Morning row.
We could look for something else
To fill the gap
Or leave it, get used
To emptiness.
Lights are going out
All over my father’s world:
A friend dies in Asia,
The continent goes dark,
Already Africa has withdrawn
Behind the veil
Where it shone
When he was young
And closer and closer comes
Complete shut down.
Lamps flick off in Kirkby,
London, Hove,
His address book sheds
An inky dust,
As words which answered back
In colour once: a daily face,
A Friday night, fear
Endured together,
Go mute
And dry out the page.
Another walk down
Sunken lanes,
That remind him of
The Caen bocage.
The sky is clear
And evening comes,
Like a big room overhead
Once full of people singing
But emptying now.
The sun goes down,
Night falls,
A door closing and
As it does a hand
Reaches back
And switches off
The light.
Page(s) 32-33
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