Nigel McLoughlin
Electricity
The gathering dark looks in at me
as I light the lantern in the porch
turn off the electric light and see
my reflection disappear. The red
night dancing in the window fractures
across droplets in the misted up pane.
It’s as if it asks me to approach,
to meet it mouth to mouth, to close
in on the solid absence of light
and look deep outside, where black
shapes move against a dark background.
Something darker-looking moves inside,
forces me to retreat away short-breathed
to the kitchen, make some excuse for tea.
I grasp the light switch in an urgency
to see again, the soft yellow eye
of the light bulb, to lie my way out
of that element which fuels me,
runs me like a turbine in my blood.
as I light the lantern in the porch
turn off the electric light and see
my reflection disappear. The red
night dancing in the window fractures
across droplets in the misted up pane.
It’s as if it asks me to approach,
to meet it mouth to mouth, to close
in on the solid absence of light
and look deep outside, where black
shapes move against a dark background.
Something darker-looking moves inside,
forces me to retreat away short-breathed
to the kitchen, make some excuse for tea.
I grasp the light switch in an urgency
to see again, the soft yellow eye
of the light bulb, to lie my way out
of that element which fuels me,
runs me like a turbine in my blood.
Page(s) 46
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