Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Julia Lewis

print this page

Walkman & Well-Tempered Clavier

‘Tempered’ by the word itself, mind as tempering tool
can tune itself to these steps, lentamente,
like fingers that touch their own tips on a mirroring pool

of keys and hear equidistance – Bach’s argument
for starting eternity anywhere. Whether flight or following,
fugue enacts past versus future.I put it to your worships the present

is plaited. From this London bus a flagged walkway,
swallowed by buildings, hopscotching, darkens;
forms perspective. Lamps overarch shop awnings,

nailed there long before saplings were planted
and paved round by civic hands. These slender trees now seem,
though taller, still under the antique lanterns, branching

out before up to receive their – light? No, something unseen.
Not light, but what the trees slow and light speeds towards –
as late afternoon and the bus pull away – an impression of pause

in each other. All endlessly forwarding ourselves dreams
that have passed, will pass, or will have passed – edge to edge – the
                                                                                            serene.

 

Page(s) 18

Back to top