Deborah Tyler-Bennett
Map Reading
Stark place names reject tourists - Cold
Overton, Cold Newton, Misterton. Picture them, old
walkers, ankle-length coats, and moon mad faces,
eyes, lost pools where heron fish, but no humans for years.
First light, they stomp wheat stubble,
head for abandoned barns.
Stern place names, grim souls moor-crossing after dark -
Barkby's jet fleeced dogs snap his heels, and
Grimston's owl mocked. Brampton Ash carries loaded guns,
hair hoary branches.
Bitteswell's a local slamming pub-doors, sniggering
at stalled engines. Sutton-in-the-Elms could only be
a high hill's burying place, where ivy,
vetch, and nightshade mourn.
Bleak place names don't countenance holidaymakers,
day trippers stopped clambering stiles,
crow hung keeper's gibbets obstructing
paths to Barleythorpe and
locations more accommodating.
Overton, Cold Newton, Misterton. Picture them, old
walkers, ankle-length coats, and moon mad faces,
eyes, lost pools where heron fish, but no humans for years.
First light, they stomp wheat stubble,
head for abandoned barns.
Stern place names, grim souls moor-crossing after dark -
Barkby's jet fleeced dogs snap his heels, and
Grimston's owl mocked. Brampton Ash carries loaded guns,
hair hoary branches.
Bitteswell's a local slamming pub-doors, sniggering
at stalled engines. Sutton-in-the-Elms could only be
a high hill's burying place, where ivy,
vetch, and nightshade mourn.
Bleak place names don't countenance holidaymakers,
day trippers stopped clambering stiles,
crow hung keeper's gibbets obstructing
paths to Barleythorpe and
locations more accommodating.
Page(s) 30
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