Howard Wright
Frontiersville
I can’t work.
I slaughter nations of ants and still they advance.
The veins in the marble show up their networks
and foolish obedience.
They survive on crumbs from my table.
I won’t work. The papers are always late
and when the metal sun strikes its zenith we all burn.
Sandalwood and praline waft out to sea
from the hotels, just so much expanded polystyrene
bedded in a tougher southern grass.
As for the lingua franca, I’m losing my accent
in this Babel, Dodge City, Timbuktu.
Take your pick.
Slave to the perfect tan,
a woman has unwrapped her face and bivouacked poolside.
Of uncertain age and anatomical jiggerypokery
she will do my back if I do hers.
I lotion her breasts and confront the shortage of ice.
Yes, appetite is a terrible thing.
For instance, today for the first time in a long time
I noticed the soft edge of the blue water
darken to an insect-laden question mark
which only added to my hunger.
Page(s) 47
magazine list
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- Ambit
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- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- 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