Christopher Allan
The Tao of the Keys
The typewriter speaks
& Dom Sylvester is lost again
Words fall out of nowhere
smirch the silence on the paper
are shaken into a birth
The starting point is simple
a cradle rocks
Warm skin a breast a blanket
a great cry
Into time the timeless enters
Again words dream
The tap of keys after Compline
the candle low
& language becomes a bridge
the strange syntax
bearing the soul’s weight
long or little the span reaches
new ground
a change in perspective opens
a phase of insanity?
Yet still the typewriter speaks
& Dom Sylvester is on to something
It is better to name God
with a verb than a noun
How the silence is covered
with the snow-tracks of birds
page after page
But something more than half wise
less than half mad
has flown away
or maybe catches its breath
unheeded under the white
Page(s) 19
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