The Ether Drinkers
Oh Samuel, forgive this intrusion:
each man to his solitary world,
he withdraws from life, to understand better.
Everything is heightened, yet far:
this soft rain hammering on the tarpaulin roof
of this disused shed
in the corner of a field in a border county.
The loose flapping of polythene windows:
and dung covered cows pass like clouds,
shelter in the hedges around the doorway.
Is it mid-morning, or a later stretch?
The muffled boom as a giant pylon
topples from its base among the spruce
the snapping of wires
zing down the valley.
And someone smiles:
a truck from the quarry back-fires in the lane.
We are neighbours by proxy:
eyes smarting in the smoke of oil-lamps
we raise our glasses of clear liquid
and swallow, then wait
for each resounding burp down the line
clear as explosive relief.
Page(s) 51
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