Julian Stannard
Art Gallery
Others have bored me.
This one quickly had our clothes off.
There was too much in it
ordering nudity.
Even the woman at the door winked
loosening the buttons on your shirt.
Proceed this way for a Caravaggio
and remember art is an aphrodisiac.
The sun beat hot on the back of our necks,
stripped to the waist
we studied our first St. Francis.
A young man with a glove whispered
I did not catch his words
a Latin tongue slips back into its mouth,
a round Venus touches the top of her thigh
opens her legs, yawns.
An old flea tries to escape -
gets caught in the brushwork
we kiss under a Bacchus
thinking the same thought.
Stern civic dignitaries observe.
Julian Stannard has recently taken up a teaching secondment at the University of Genoa. He usually teaches at a college of the University of East Anglia. Last year Peterloo published Rina’s War (see review page 75), a first collection. His work has also appeared in the Guardian, First Pressings (Faber) and Reactions 2 (UEA). He is at present working on a second collection.
Page(s) 43
magazine list
- Features
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- 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