Philip Burton
Ramsgate, East Cliff Song
We approach from the brick butt Regency back-street.
A roped song, of rain, fog, and salt, climbs the stacks.
An old buck's pantaloons flap Calais-wards
held by a whisker of twisted peg
to a ringlet balcony. Marge is on the piano
and the pub door creaks a tuba part, very discreet.
There's a debate. She wins with,
Let's go melt the tongue of November on a lungful of coffee.
It's a long puddle up from the sea.
The ocean looks flat from here.
The cliff rules. Above its white cavity, a gull wheels.
The café's side window, partly steamed,
is a view through the front glass to the peeling clouds
and the kissed girl running for cover
ribbon blown loose as the sea's mystery.
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- Borderlines
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- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Iota
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
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- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
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- Orbis
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
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- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
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- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
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- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The