Talking to the Wall
The weather is easily watched from summer homes
swanning the inland sea and leaving carsick roads
in their wake. Abandoned, a single backswept tree
must wait an eternity for a friend, a soulmate.
Don't upset yourself. Head for the only port,
a house with pub in tow, your fellow-travellers
ranged along one side of the front room where a local
holds court, full as a spoon, his face in the drink
as he praises the 40 million bodhrán players of Ireland
and why only inebriated girls should be taught
to swear in Irish while, above his head, the tv
is pulling down Chicken Noodle News from a satellite
in geo-synchronous orbit, saying the end of the world
will be one of these: a rogue asteroid or mutant virus;
the bio-tech industries in meltdown or sea level rising
until every vestige of humanity, for what it's worth,
is eliminated. All of which it reminds you
of a song - the words, not the tune. But nobody
is listening because that is the nature of things.
And when you finally get to the bar, flag unfurled,
the barman is calling last orders, last orders please,
though he might as well be talking to the wall.
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