James Byrne
A Possible Ending
It will be late, coal-dark, and I’ll still be up
thinking of friends long gone who headed
off to some shindig and never came back.
Out on a remote porch, so far removed
from England. Somewhere badly mapped,
near Michigan, where coordinates of cloud
bend and dissipate into vast nothingness.
I’ll think of you and a handful of others,
fondly, like an old family I once loved.
There, in the icy spotlight of a moon,
abrim with every kiss of inward memory,
you’ll soak through me like a downpour.
Casually, I’ll crack the cap off a beer,
say Cheers! to the best bits, drink to the rest
and let the absences live on without me.
James Byrne's first collection, Passages of Time (Waterways), was published in 2003. He founded New Blood, a popular monthly event at Covent Garden's Poetry Café, and he is co-editor of The Wolf poetry magazine.
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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