Carole Coates
"I"
I've always been wary of the first person singular –
such a monumental obelisk of a word.
It stands on the hill overlooking the little town,
points upwards, admonishing the sky –
it has steps, platform, plinth,
low stone walls with ornamental balls,
an air of consequence and a voice of its own
which it borrows from the lighthouse, boooum, boooum.
Floodlit at night, ships salute it
and cars bark in recognition down on the esplanade.
It celebrates the valiant (male) dead
or the clever (male) engineer
or the brilliant (male) explorer
or the duke who marched his men up and down a hill.
And who could quarrel with any of this?
But I am left in the ornamental shrubbery
thinking, shall I creep up there, do I dare?
Do I dare?
such a monumental obelisk of a word.
It stands on the hill overlooking the little town,
points upwards, admonishing the sky –
it has steps, platform, plinth,
low stone walls with ornamental balls,
an air of consequence and a voice of its own
which it borrows from the lighthouse, boooum, boooum.
Floodlit at night, ships salute it
and cars bark in recognition down on the esplanade.
It celebrates the valiant (male) dead
or the clever (male) engineer
or the brilliant (male) explorer
or the duke who marched his men up and down a hill.
And who could quarrel with any of this?
But I am left in the ornamental shrubbery
thinking, shall I creep up there, do I dare?
Do I dare?
Page(s) 18
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