Patricia Bishop
A First Collection
(A papyrus containing six-hundred lines of verse was found resting on the breast of a mummy in Alexandrian Egypt. It was written over 2,000 years ago and the poet was Posidippus of Pella. It is believed to be the oldest known collection of Greek poetry.)
Six hundred lines he left
of grief and cures, shipwrecks
and love and some lines about a
stone he thought distinctly odd.
All these he left with his beloved.
I too have written of snow
and aubergines, told of birth,
mentioned passion in passing.
When, in a little while we meet
Posedippus, I'll listen to you
in some ethereal olive grove.
Lyres will play and strange creatures pass.
Later, in an English wood we'll sit
sipping tea and I will tell you tales
of jazz and wars and all our words
will be most beautiful and exact.
Six hundred lines he left
of grief and cures, shipwrecks
and love and some lines about a
stone he thought distinctly odd.
All these he left with his beloved.
I too have written of snow
and aubergines, told of birth,
mentioned passion in passing.
When, in a little while we meet
Posedippus, I'll listen to you
in some ethereal olive grove.
Lyres will play and strange creatures pass.
Later, in an English wood we'll sit
sipping tea and I will tell you tales
of jazz and wars and all our words
will be most beautiful and exact.
Patricia Bishop lives in Gloucestershire.
Page(s) 108
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