Paul Sohar
Armistice day parade on the Boulevard de l’Opéra
The battle lines are drawn
by the baroque and faux
renaissance facades
of the de luxe apartment
houses, and the battle field is
the wide boulevard between them;
at first light in the morning
the front lines start their advance
toward each other,
bricks and cornices are lobbed at the advancing edifice,
doors slam shut but windows pop open and spray
shards of glass across the narrowing gap and
finally
just before the two sides crash
the balcomies get pulverised
and the window ornaments explode into dust
and then the grinding force of the impact
heaps a rising crescendo on the rubble
ground out by the heavy structures;
for a moment the walls flatten face to face: bang!
then there is the low moan of walls giving way,
collapsing over each other,
but it’s not over while there is still one wall standing,
for what stands up must keep on the move
until it’s tripped by the rubble;
but once it’s over peace returns,
the bricks and stones struggle back to their places
in the walls facing each other
across the busy boulevard,
to wait for the next signal
at another dawn.
Page(s) 45
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