Paul Summers
the shadow of chimneys
we danced our infant summers
in the shadow of chimneys
each episode a symphony
of bar-code light, clinging
like hockle to a blackleg’s face
painted like legend on
the same bruising cobbles
that shoeless bairns had hopped
& scotched upon in onetimewhen.
we left our mark on the chapel wall
unfinished hearts & shaz 4 paul
in dripping gloss we’d filched from dad:
our tributes daubed in darker times
with fuck the state & mick’s a scab
we stalked the kids at number 12
like golding’s boys with savage blood
with skewer spears of penknived birch
for crimes of having gardens
we played our clammy sex-games
on the elderberried wasteground
fingering our hairless forms
perfecting all our rendezvous
until the call for dinner came
we engineered a world of foes
of japs & huns, arapahos
but fought our wars of sticks & stones
for the tenderness of nurses
we carved ourselves a lost boy’s world
entrenched ourselves in no-man’s land
set vietcong traps against the old
we dug until our fingers bled
we danced our infant summers
in the shadow of chimneys
each episode a symphony
of bar-code light, clinging
like hockle to a blackleg’s face
Page(s) 50
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