Huw Lawrence
Transparent Things
Gazing at nothing as the evening condenses
Dreaming’s not really needed, the world stands still,
Her dreams pass by like shadows of clouds on a hill.
But in the stable of her mind an old Ferguson
Is watching, slyly keeping her in sight
As slow yellow notes from a busker’s saxophone
Slink across the yard between hens in tongues of light.
Her hair is white as wool caught on wire fences.
She raises a soiled hand as if to a curtain
She shuts, as life pleads suddenly, but hopelessly,
Let me come in! Instead she travels by taxi,
Flanked by police, to be questioned by the queen,
Follows tyre tracks of crushed grass to a liaison
In a house without neighbours to hear her screams.
And she draws a matchstick man on the paving stone
Where she sits, an outline that nothing is certain.
Strangers are neighbours, neighbours strangers, alone
She spots desecration in the drained mug of tea,
Casts about, flails and yelps involuntarily.
Life again sees its chance as she stares at a branch
Starkly unique in the bleak and unloving light
Loudly demanding as she follows its skewed arch,
Who’s here? Whose mind is it to which the thing gives sight?
But she’s lost in reflections from a saxophone.
Page(s) 40
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