The Oedipus Rex Film
Taking their seats in the cinema, they
watch the film unroll, chase passively
the images across the screen.
It is the film about their parents,
their love and their lack of money.
When they kiss, these poor relations,
at best far-off, the silent watchers
steal off, and flow into the woods.
Covered in sweat, they stumble
over sleeping nudes. Their hearts
and bones converse with the waking sky.
The woods are full
of the passions of the poor. They make us
rich, and who shall not take them,
their pure Sons and clean-thighed girls?
Along these forest-paths, little ways
which change places in the night,
and in the morning lead nowhere,
our friends beat hastily.
Every glade promises its adventure.
Are we, as we loosen our tight collars
in the darkness of the cinema, to blame
for dirty hands, violation, sickness
and crest-fallen parents?
The film does not end, but sits
upright, jerks to and fro,
startles and afraid.
The violated mother moves only in time,
and her trembling image halts before our eyes.
Those leaving the cinema feel
not bewildered but unable to understand
the cause of all the tears,
the shrivelling of a rose.
Page(s) 81-82
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