Matthew Chapman
Somewhere Else
Fingers of shade advancing
over an unkempt garden,
the grass too long
and a film of dew forming.
I watch you like a fat black eel
through the grass
feeling my heart beat belly down
while shafts of late sun and laughter
fall liberally tonight.
These miracles of light
and air happen freely,
but this is the forced end of something
that never started right.
I've had too much to drink
tonight, I feel like photographic paper.
I am the black image: love,
you're the white: not love,
but something else.
I might have said that earlier;
how embarrassing.
I've played this game one-sided
too many years for spite,
naming its two halves:
something stupid, something sad.
Tonight, I laugh at all your jokes,
hearing most of them again,
and think about myself
with all these people
somewhere else
and you not there at all,
but somewhere else again.
over an unkempt garden,
the grass too long
and a film of dew forming.
I watch you like a fat black eel
through the grass
feeling my heart beat belly down
while shafts of late sun and laughter
fall liberally tonight.
These miracles of light
and air happen freely,
but this is the forced end of something
that never started right.
I've had too much to drink
tonight, I feel like photographic paper.
I am the black image: love,
you're the white: not love,
but something else.
I might have said that earlier;
how embarrassing.
I've played this game one-sided
too many years for spite,
naming its two halves:
something stupid, something sad.
Tonight, I laugh at all your jokes,
hearing most of them again,
and think about myself
with all these people
somewhere else
and you not there at all,
but somewhere else again.
Page(s) 44
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