Becky Swan
Kipling House
So many people, yet so alone -
Partners gone.
Treated like children again -
Bedtime at nine.
Knitting, chess, TV,
Make up the days’ activities,
But there’s fish and chips on Fridays
And bingo at weekends.
An empty woman is spoon-fed,
Pureed something dribbles down her neck.
Degradation, humiliation,
Irreversible deterioration.
Restricted mobility for poor old George,
He sits in an armchair all day.
Then there’s Bill,
Who wanders around all the time.
He talks and talks about the war
As if it were yesterday.
And Jane, who cries on the hour
Into her cup of tea.
Her husband died three years ago,
They had no next of kin.
Now, it is just Jane.
Now, it is just George.
Now, it is just Bill.
Who talks and talks about the war
As if it were yesterday.
Page(s) 124
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