Rod Riesco
Return by night
Travelling back, I thought I knew the place
but I was wrong. A whole new street had grown,
with Tudor gables, dustbins, fences, cars,
and stranger’s eyes that watched me, the unknown.
Some trees were heavier, mournful, others cleared
for parking space and driveways. Hunting names
- the streetlights were as dim as I remembered,
the black leaves fainting yellow in their beams –
I stumbled at the crossing. Gangs of cars
patrolled the road with razor cones of light.
I had no stake here, nothing to preserve,
accounts all settled, interest paid in tears.
A manic cyclist flew past without lights,
rejoicing in his suicidal verve.
but I was wrong. A whole new street had grown,
with Tudor gables, dustbins, fences, cars,
and stranger’s eyes that watched me, the unknown.
Some trees were heavier, mournful, others cleared
for parking space and driveways. Hunting names
- the streetlights were as dim as I remembered,
the black leaves fainting yellow in their beams –
I stumbled at the crossing. Gangs of cars
patrolled the road with razor cones of light.
I had no stake here, nothing to preserve,
accounts all settled, interest paid in tears.
A manic cyclist flew past without lights,
rejoicing in his suicidal verve.
Page(s) 25
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