Mimi Khalvati
Lyric
A lyric couldn’t do what birds do, could it,
alighting at random, swinging from line
to line, driving at the reader. Some birds
against buildings, grey on grey, disappear
entirely, dying in and out of colour,
or white-winged, black-winged, differentiate
too briefly to inhabit the memory
of such a small three-dimensional plane.
Birds seem designed to be seen against sky -perhaps
lyrics are designed to be seen
against self - the heat of sun on a forehead,
a momentary flight, stay in a tree,
the flit of a season casting not shadows
but slants on a face without narrative,
history, context. Against which, whatever
matches a nuance blends and is interred,
whatever holds its own ground, black or white,
argues depth and whatever hovers, craves
descent, struggling to alight on a skyline
but failing, having to fly, appears in pain.
Page(s) 59
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