Tom Paulin
A September Rising
I nearly saw them this morning.
There was rust in the beech leaves,
The branches were twisted and nude, grey
In the glistening from a blue that stretched
The subtlest, the finest of frosts.
They were there in that air,
Faintly cheeping, chittering a white
Web in the blue. Changing and staying still.
Squaddies and navvies perhaps, but
Mainly the spirit grocers.
Beyond politeness, justified;
Beyond salt bacon and rickety bells
Jangled on light doors by their betters.
The invisible purveyors of provisions,
Glad now in their fine element.
They could chicker above the trees
In the blue air, they could be
Queerly happy and seethe like sprats,
Like fresh silver in the deepest drawer.
Everywhere their names are fading,
They are taken down, stranded
Among speed, on forgotten shelves
In the back offices of new democracies;
But they live, they live again
Above brick cities which are soldiers’ villages.
Page(s) 19
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