Tim Robertson
Holiday flat, September 2001
The smoke reaches her balcony
from my daily cigarette for the setting sun.
She'd rather it didn't, Madame Next-Door -
has smuggled a slight Parisian sneer
into neighbourly Bonsoirs (some glass on the beach) -
but won't complain, since the grey Dutchman
she coaxes back later each night
smokes himself, and we've overheard
from their mutual English her hatred
of sleeping alone.
At today's dusk
as I lit up, the breeze from the Med
had switched course - drifts of Madame's
frying and TV news - when she flustered
up to the balustrade: "You have heard?"
I stubbed out as she gathered us in,
half children, half her staunchest friends,
to see and strain in snatches to grasp
the French.
Back after more at a quayside
bar that lapsed in the end to sport,
the rings I blow mechanically at the stars
fail to make them hazy, leave
even their blank background sharp.
Past my paperback, gripped, unread,
the international lovers slip out for air,
some glint from Madame's jewellery catching my eye.
Page(s) 29
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