fortitude
going back
to what he has lost
going back when he knows
he has lost it, to return to standing
after being crumpled and trampled down
because he lay down and begged to be trampled
left lying when the battle was over and won by others
like the kid in Pied Piper face-down in the debris to pick himself up
and shake off the dust somehow, wiping the blood the dirt from his
knees
to go on to make what he knows for years lives days longer is the
same mistake
though he hopes each time he makes it he is making it slowly less
deeply going on going on
to what he has lost
going back when he knows
he has lost it, to return to standing
after being crumpled and trampled down
because he lay down and begged to be trampled
left lying when the battle was over and won by others
like the kid in Pied Piper face-down in the debris to pick himself up
and shake off the dust somehow, wiping the blood the dirt from his
knees
to go on to make what he knows for years lives days longer is the
same mistake
though he hopes each time he makes it he is making it slowly less
deeply going on going on
Page(s) 30
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