James Pickles
Eighty
Even the smallest cut now takes days to heal.
He struggles up stairs like his father did,
climbing into the wind. The banisters
grow strong beneath his weakening grip.
The man selling newspapers shouts
in his ear. Bewildered, lost, he looks around,
but already the news is strange and different,
and everything he knows is lost in the crowd.
All he can do now is watch and listen.
He stares at a bowl of fruit and is happy.
The young green colour of an apple holds him,
the smell of oranges brings morning to his brain.
The news vendor’s shout rings again in his ear.
The noise from outside keeps him from dozing
but his slow blood yawns, and under his smile
the eye of his heart insists on closing.
The vendor is shouting his name in the street.
He tries to speak, but cannot form the words -
already his thoughts have turned to sunlight;
his gathering voice is full of birds.
Page(s) 14
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