Ultramarine
Flesh, alas, is all
grief, and I’ve read every book.
Fly away! Fly far
away from here! I sense now
the birds are drunk with foreign
foam and foreign skies!
Nothing! not even ancient
gardens reflected
in these eyes can now restrain
this heart deep-drenched in the sea.
O nights! nor barren
radiance from my lamp upon
the blank paper that
its blanknesses defend, nor
a young wife suckling her child.
I shall put out to sea!
Steamship swinging her mastheads,
weigh anchor toward
some more exotic landfall!
Ennui, made desolate
by sad deceptions
still trusts the supreme adieu’s
fluttered handkerchiefs!
Perhaps these masts, inviting
tempests, are those that a wind
inclines on shipwrecks —
lost, without masts, without masts
nor fertile islets. .
But 0, my heart, lend ear to
those shanties the sailors sing!
Translated by James Kirkup
Page(s) 89
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