Deborah Tyler-Bennett
On Seeing a Picture of Keats' Death-mask in The Observer
1
Set features flash between news-
pages. I'm shoved by shock's
obsidian hand. Sent diving ship-
wrecked fathoms swimming
a sunk hull's rib-
cage.
Plaster mask, face of a
statue underwater.
2
Emerge juddering at
death still warm; cut
seedling, split hyacinth
bulb weeping pasty sap, poplar stripped
of heartwood.
Always thinking
images, did
pictures play before
Keats
(like home
movies) as he lay perspiring?
Movies, spring
snapshots.
3
Folding newsprint I
crack the picture, riven
light sundering black
ink.
By garages outside, boys play
football hacking... striving... as
much spring's heralds as
blackbird plainsong.
Merman face flooding
vision, flattened
between pages, rippled rice-
paper. Lined mouth, sheer veins on
pressed Sea-holly.
Page(s) 65-66
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