David Barnett
Beach Party
Mauve stone with fossil
whorls salts the tendons
of a cove. Atlantic
crossed by spotted dogfish
and a dawn over
a sky’s irises, the spores
in its curved course.
Pared to a heavy
egg, stone proves
an age that’s dolphin-sound.
Rolling past fry, islet,
kelp-anthers wavering
at a strands lash
against a rift too slim
for frass or bill of cormorant.
Sleek like this pebble
shoring a shore. Loosening
cadenzas slight yet tried.
Clean as the combers
sopping rocks. Giving
a stone its gleam, sheen,
its sense of being beached
here. Shingle-single.
Till it’s brayed into sand.
Or a further burst
scarifies it. Contours
gone. Pith remains.
Borne by a trade-
wind to its haven.
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