Frances Nagle
Home
Not Königsberg which I have never seen,
Which is no longer where it was
But has been cantilevered out
Of one country into another,
No stranger to such motionless journeys,
Waking up next morning with its pages
Wiped clean of yesterday's language;
Its population coming to from sleep
In which someone tampered with their dreams,
To a town whose name has been disappeared;
The holiest of holy names
To those who got away in time.
Not Nottingham - the new start,
Where my father never allowed himself to admit
That the past abides.
Too many secrets for a little girl:
Words like Jew and German; the name she
Was born with that isn't their name now,
A name too terrible to tell.
Not Nottingham, city of traps and pitfalls.
This place of safety that was so unsafe.
York, Salford, Prestwich, Marple Bridge.
The train stops here for a while. Unpack my books,
Start to take on the colour of the place, move on -
Much to be said for not getting in too deep.
Someday a ward, or a room in Twilight Court.
Space enough to remember and forget.
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