Dave Hall
A Perfect Day
A short trip by car
To a Cathedral city,
The trees either side
The main road
Bursting into May.
A young woman
In the shopping precinct
Stepping out sharply,
Chin up, head high.
Down by the river
Yellow wagtails flip,
Flicker and twist
Above the short grass
Buttoned with blossom.
Three characters
From the visiting fair
Stroll out beneath
The heaving beech trees,
Slack, casual, relaxed;
They’ve got all day.
We motor home.
Clouds which had gathered disperse.
Disintegrating vapour trails
Like zips across pale milky blue.
A blackbird juicily delivers
Its unhurried even-song.
Sack at the fair
Generators stutter into life
And everything starts to swing and sway
As the multicoloured lights come on,
On a perfect day.
To a Cathedral city,
The trees either side
The main road
Bursting into May.
A young woman
In the shopping precinct
Stepping out sharply,
Chin up, head high.
Down by the river
Yellow wagtails flip,
Flicker and twist
Above the short grass
Buttoned with blossom.
Three characters
From the visiting fair
Stroll out beneath
The heaving beech trees,
Slack, casual, relaxed;
They’ve got all day.
We motor home.
Clouds which had gathered disperse.
Disintegrating vapour trails
Like zips across pale milky blue.
A blackbird juicily delivers
Its unhurried even-song.
Sack at the fair
Generators stutter into life
And everything starts to swing and sway
As the multicoloured lights come on,
On a perfect day.
Page(s) 117
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