Tale Untold
As though, if she could lift free of the pain
She would have a tale to tell, she raised herself
On the bed, the old springs protesting.
We humoured her, not thinking that weary souls
Had anything much to say. For minutes
She would hang there, a terrible pale bird
Stymied amongst the grasses, dewlaps trembling.
Always the same then: her stare would darken
Until under the awful weight of it
She would fall back, pain once more having engulfed
Her narrative, if narrative there was
Struggling against exhaustion to be born.
Amidst our solicitous silences
She would lie back, helplessly, bitterly.
Were we unkind, then, in sensing a change,
A lapse, a weakening of ambition,
Dying lips shaping themselves to a curse,
Or to a vow, some impossible prayer?
She would have a tale to tell, she raised herself
On the bed, the old springs protesting.
We humoured her, not thinking that weary souls
Had anything much to say. For minutes
She would hang there, a terrible pale bird
Stymied amongst the grasses, dewlaps trembling.
Always the same then: her stare would darken
Until under the awful weight of it
She would fall back, pain once more having engulfed
Her narrative, if narrative there was
Struggling against exhaustion to be born.
Amidst our solicitous silences
She would lie back, helplessly, bitterly.
Were we unkind, then, in sensing a change,
A lapse, a weakening of ambition,
Dying lips shaping themselves to a curse,
Or to a vow, some impossible prayer?
Peter Gilmour lives in Glasgow and has poems and stories in various magazines.
Page(s) 9
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