Margaret J. Cooke
Walking On Water
Roll up, roll up, to the star show on the pier !
And so we did, packed in a tight, loud drum
Where people heaved with mystifying laughter,
Bright hot brass coiled from the orchestra pit,
Lights split the dark, and in a brilliant ring,
Two Ton Tessie from Tennessee
Burst like a genie from her shaking sequins
And skinned our ears with voice and ukelele
Sharp as tin.
It was strange, it was tremendous,
And when we poured out of the lighted drum,
Best of all it was night, and there we were
On a plank street out at sea, in a solid wind
That blew us inside out like clothes on a line
And emptied our heads of all sounds but itself
And the roaring tide.
Stunned, we clung together
Away from the rails where spray could pick you off
To roll among the waves that crushed and thundered
Under the planks and reared up through the gaps
To catch your feet. We were almost on their backs.
Drown or dance ! Out of ourselves with joy,
We set our streaming faces to the Prom,
And dodging spray, linked arm in arm in lines,
Laughing and reeling, doing the Palais Glide,
We walked on water to the golden land.
magazine list
- Features
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- 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