Alan Halsey
An Imitation, in a Prospect of Reasonable Distance, for K.C.
In a language like ours being spoken
by a people who are unlike us
there's no way of saying that the words
Duty Free aren't one hundred per cent
ontological proof. There's plain
scrubbed table with our soup and beer and us
being put in the picture
on the wall there, a true story
of provincial insurrection and tough luck.
Their words sound the same but are different
parts of speech, isn't that what
the passport officer's trying to explain
to the high commissioner? We can't tell
if he's looking us over or looking over us
at the corner of the picture where the clouds
have faded and the ugly gods of an unknown
master show through. The border guards
are setting up tables in the northern pavilion.
We're setting off home along Broad Street
with the silk route behind us, I'm quoting from
memory a parallel text on the Altai Mountains.
Page(s) 9
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