Paul Stephenson
Christmas Diver
Hope Bay, 63° 24’ S 56° 59’ W, 24. 12. 45
I have sunk
down to the sea flour
In profundis my lead feet
forget their dancing steps.
If I could remove my helmet
I would send slow minims round the ocean ways
sound hemispheres behind whale eyes,
slough off the heavy deep suit
swim my bass part
to the lines of wave and albatross
and the skua’s high descant.
Instead, I hang from this mirror stratosphere and watch
a green Himalaya drift by.
Up in the bright air my underworld
inverts into cathedrals. I’m
winched to heaven from a limpet life
to join oil-soaked angels in their balaclavas
for my first communion
the other side:
hard tack and, in an enamel mug,
Black Label!
By God we sang! ’Ding-dong! Merrily’ in three parts
while the winds climbed to their organ lofts,
found flute and diapson
and our heavy-duty metronome burped diesel,
chugged its little load of lost choirboys late by twenty years
up to the chancel steps.
Glory to the Old Man!
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
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