Ian Pople
Visiting
The light was good;
I parked outside
the light blue stucco
of the corner house,
the street door frame
was varnished pine,
the door recessed,
the concrete stepped up
to the pale hall,
the stairwell to your
first floor room.
A single line
of birthday cards
was strung across
from wall to wall,
and half a cardboard
Christmas tree
was growing from
the notice board.
I twice visited
the still light
of that room.
The second time
as I descended
the cold stairs
your voice came
loudly in my head,
'Your warmth is still
inside me,' and
something else
I don't remember.
I turned to see
you standing by
your open door;
outlined beneath
your green teeshirt
the discs of your nipples
like small shields.
I parked outside
the light blue stucco
of the corner house,
the street door frame
was varnished pine,
the door recessed,
the concrete stepped up
to the pale hall,
the stairwell to your
first floor room.
A single line
of birthday cards
was strung across
from wall to wall,
and half a cardboard
Christmas tree
was growing from
the notice board.
I twice visited
the still light
of that room.
The second time
as I descended
the cold stairs
your voice came
loudly in my head,
'Your warmth is still
inside me,' and
something else
I don't remember.
I turned to see
you standing by
your open door;
outlined beneath
your green teeshirt
the discs of your nipples
like small shields.
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