Alfred Todd
2nd July - not being Hemingway
What Valéry said of all poems
may also be true of a life,
as it was in that Idaho dawn.
Abandoned, one hopes, as a poem should be,
at the pivotal point
of too little and too much;
between early hope and late despair -
if we recognise the place.
Like a moment of grace, somewhere between
the first corrida of San Fermin
and the parting plaint of the Pobre de Mi.
In a poem, or a life,
who can tell us what to say, or do -
or when to stop?
So, on this day -
not being Hemingway -
I will raise to my lips
a glass of white wine,
cold as the barrels of his gun,
and (not knowing how, or when, to stop) -
go on....
may also be true of a life,
as it was in that Idaho dawn.
Abandoned, one hopes, as a poem should be,
at the pivotal point
of too little and too much;
between early hope and late despair -
if we recognise the place.
Like a moment of grace, somewhere between
the first corrida of San Fermin
and the parting plaint of the Pobre de Mi.
In a poem, or a life,
who can tell us what to say, or do -
or when to stop?
So, on this day -
not being Hemingway -
I will raise to my lips
a glass of white wine,
cold as the barrels of his gun,
and (not knowing how, or when, to stop) -
go on....
Page(s) 6
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- 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