Dennis Travis
D.I.Y.
It sits on the shelf, a book like the others,
you touch it and know it’s wood, oak,
the grain close as packed pages.
You take it down, no weight to heft;
you shake it, sniff, no trinkets, cigars,
and it feels empty of what happens in stories.
It has lozenges tooled back and front
in frames with a bite from each corner,
four grooves measure off the spine,
all chased with the care spent on gilded calf;
a classic from another age, but no title,
this book shows and doesn’t tell.
Yet somewhere there must be - ah, yes -
a thumbnail finds a way in, a tug,
and competing with air for space
a drawer slides out - and nothing -
not the bones of a character, a thread of plot;
just a whisper of dialogue.
You shelve the book, in fiction this time;
you know what the author had in mind,
and slowly an idea is taking shape.
Page(s) 49
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