Behind a Bar
It being the quiet time. Fires lit.
Glasses polished. Bottles dusted,
turned label-first, and my father
exercises his mind, lifting words
like weights from the book:
enero, febrero, marzo and on, a whole year
passing slowly in a country he may
not visit. And here is a regular
needing a small half and ready salted.
Buenas tardes my father smiles,
exhibits a small flamenco shuffle
which has taken much practice.
The regular nods, carries his drink
and large silence to the fire,
where he is beyond any heat
and my father now opening
the hatch to his cellar, looking up,
Ta eres una silleta (1),
descending to find more work,
Senorita, me ha dado el numero equivocado (2).
(1) You are a bed-pan
(2) Operator, you have given me the wrong number.
(2) Operator, you have given me the wrong number.
Page(s) 38
magazine list
- Features
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- 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