Liz Atkin
Those long gone Gods
She has carried him, this effigy
of her dead lover, to hold against
her aching body as they sit
on the parched brown lawn.
Air that was trilling and fluting
minutes ago has become still and thick,
weighting down left behind flies
with imminent storm.
As the first fat drops fall in near
dark, she raises his face with its sewn
sweet smile to the rumbling sky.
But she lives in the wrong age,
hers is a time of a weak, powerless,
bricked up God held together
with fluorescent posters and bluster,
if only she could plead between
searing lightning and tumbling thunder
to those long gone Gods, gone without
even a trace of likeness left in cumulus,
they would have understood, they would
have animated this effigy of her lover
for just one last, final night of passion.
of her dead lover, to hold against
her aching body as they sit
on the parched brown lawn.
Air that was trilling and fluting
minutes ago has become still and thick,
weighting down left behind flies
with imminent storm.
As the first fat drops fall in near
dark, she raises his face with its sewn
sweet smile to the rumbling sky.
But she lives in the wrong age,
hers is a time of a weak, powerless,
bricked up God held together
with fluorescent posters and bluster,
if only she could plead between
searing lightning and tumbling thunder
to those long gone Gods, gone without
even a trace of likeness left in cumulus,
they would have understood, they would
have animated this effigy of her lover
for just one last, final night of passion.
Liz Atkin’s second collection, The Biscuit Tins of England, is published by Iron Press in October 2003.
Page(s) 43
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