This Day A Life
Today is made of yesterdays:
the ears roar because of tonsillectomies
insisted on by vultures in pin-stripes; - - -
there was an oily gloat of eye-yolks
as they leaned to watch syringes, pipes
bringing temporary death; talks,
heavy lubricity, in the study with father
warning against the dangers of springtime love:
more fatal that than all other,
for he was the first ‘parfit’ knight to move
you, and he made a filth of the mating-
game so your mind gave it up in a way.
On Sunday you could play only hymns, listen to prating
in the Methodist Chapel rigged for the fray, -
long kid gloves with forty buttons, a hat
like a po. The loo in the conservatory was the one place
you could write a poem in safety if you ever sat
without a skyscraper of books beside you, a trace
of meditation in your wary eyes,
you were urged out for a stiff walk
to wash your brain clean. Cries
and hurts were bitten off like chalk.
Page(s) 28
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