Back Then
Back then it was live, crowded, blue (the sky)
different, easier, much more fun, a good laugh
longer (the days in winter), February, an hour
before midnight, after
Yes it was crowded the atmosphere was
words can’t describe the atmosphere.
It sounded like a joke but wasn’t. You were
there weren’t you? How old were you
in those days?
cellotape the sky the doorhandle door
open a table in it on end skirting the tower
on the horizon sky above it clouds
the window sill distance cup
on a shelf lino scuffed carpet nervous
beauty smell of your hand in the sunshine
a deckchair like sand the ocean small
creatures not together separating
(like the of like like in the)
man called Walker walking a queue
outside a cinema harmonica out the window
the couple eating breakfast on a stranger’s verandah
Hannibal setting out over the alps the Band’s farewell
view of the Pacific over that bit of flat all
downhill Polish houses like in Poland
the field of gear boxes at the breakers in Flint
the gear box that clicked in first Michaelangelo
on his scaffolding with a bad back the pope
coming to a decision the pope coming
my brother before his bike is stolen
the third reich entering Paris leaving
the roads asleep the melting tarmac melting
Page(s) 10
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