Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Penelope Shuttle

print this page

Village Fiddler

What’s more final than divorce?

This is,
being forever without you,
no hope of reconciliation,
a door
closing me into the alone of myself,
into the evening of everything,
kings no longer robed in flamingo silks,
the long voyage of dusk into more dusk,
darkness and its very small secrets,
your death
fixing me forever on the outskirts of tears.

Once I had the lion’s share of you,
now
I’m like a village fiddler,
my tune a ragged green curtain
on which deer leap through foliage,
and where you are the darkest tree

in a forest not of this world.

Penelope Shuttle has lived in Cornwall since 1970 and is the widow of Peter Redgrove (1932–2003). Her eighth collection, Redgrove’s Wife, appeared from Bloodaxe in May 2006 and is nominated for this year’s Forward Prize for Best Collection.

Page(s) 50

Back to top