The Crystal Night
Why this beautiful name for such horrors?
Was it the weather, crystal cold,
quartz-exact stars vibrating?
Glass will sag a little if hard pressed,
true crystal never gives, just breaks.
Black or gilt letters were deciphered
backwards from habit.
Was it some small
crystal sound of frozen plane leaves,
the crystal noise when windows fell?
No victim's fear proved the greatest.
Rock crystals crusted gutters and pools
that night, though everything else had shrunk.
A few people peered through snowflakes,
monocle or pince-nez permanently fixed,
disturbing roses on grand pianos.
Others gazed into the smoky crystal
of history , discerning nothing but words
marching backwards against the light.
Note: "The crystal night" was a large-scale Nazi pogrom in 1938.
Page(s) 46
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
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- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Fabric
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- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
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- 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