Going West
Birds cluster round the pier at almost dusk:
starlings as vivid fidgeting twittering shadows;
the pigeons pale and immobile on the girders,
their heads tucked up out of sight.
The day’s
gone west with a flare of scarlet on the edge
of Exmoor.
If it were summer the sun would
set in the sea, and perhaps I might see again
the emerald ray shoot out horizontally
just after.
And even now, if I could go west,
go west, go west, I might stay the light on
my side of the world’s curve.
There’s a dead
dogfish on the sand looking so alive – that
limber tail – that I circle it warily, recalling
it’s cousin to sharks.
The birds will be at it
tomorrow, it’s laid out as if for a feast;
I know the dogfish has gone west despite
that momentary brightness on skin and eye.
Page(s) 31
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