Liz Palmer-Smith
Paper Gods
We revere your wax-flattered flesh.
We press our lips to many of your faceted images,
Our world is built with ancient emotions, flat. Perfection.
You live in our foiled boxes,
Unreal people, elevating our foggy lives.
Icarus-like, we fly at your sun. Burning.
Filled with false desire, inspired, blinded by your light
Too bright, others falter, faults woven large
Loom out of proportion, real life. Death.
Your voice falls in snowy drifts
Settling about our ears. We now hear your faults, fears.
Facing fragile mortality, we turn away. Broken.
Did you understand too late, your fate,
The fate of a paper god, falling.
Your mistakes undo what was great. Murderer.
We did what we had to.
That night, we tore down your temples,
Removed your icon from the altar/dressing-table. Unstable.
We wept for you, our fantastic fantasy.
You ended your days in a blaze,
But not quite full circle, you curled old and wrinkled.
Twisted by fate.
Bonfire fodder,
Fallen.
Page(s) 122-123
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