Beaches
Holidays were life on red alert, ambushed by ecstasy,
drooling vanilla,
wasps and tar, our backsides mangled by the same new pebbles
squatting
(monarchs of an ossuary) high above the same new water,
squabbling.
We tolerated small waves, let them nibble shingle, mould time's bones,
but what we craved
was rearing terror. Something absolute without a name lurked
in the glass-green chill
and teased us, flicking fishes, tiny rubber-bands, around our legs,
too busy safe unreal
to match the lovely monsters homing in from under the horizon,
true secret reason
for this swaying element (that, having failed again to kill us,
let us wobble
bloodless, semaphoring up the endless slope, appalled
on new-born feet).
drooling vanilla,
wasps and tar, our backsides mangled by the same new pebbles
squatting
(monarchs of an ossuary) high above the same new water,
squabbling.
We tolerated small waves, let them nibble shingle, mould time's bones,
but what we craved
was rearing terror. Something absolute without a name lurked
in the glass-green chill
and teased us, flicking fishes, tiny rubber-bands, around our legs,
too busy safe unreal
to match the lovely monsters homing in from under the horizon,
true secret reason
for this swaying element (that, having failed again to kill us,
let us wobble
bloodless, semaphoring up the endless slope, appalled
on new-born feet).
Page(s) 39
magazine list
- Features
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- 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