J. J. Steinfeld
Near the Photographs of Sadness
Choose a metaphor, something simple and uncomplicated.
Step back, scratch your head eruditely,
have a coffee, and another,
doodle in imitation of a gifted artist
pull a book from the top shelf
of your tallest bookcase
the one in the living room
near the photographs of sadness.
The book is both comforting
and distressing as discomfort
humankind or human-un-kind
I’ll have to ponder that one
flip the page, see if the decoding device is there
contents, indexes, footnotes, coffee stains.
Halfway through the first chapter you read
that there are philosophers of beauty
and of despair,
of the invisible
of the overly hidden
multitudes of philosophers all at the ready
and there are the devoted,
that is in the second chapter
there are those devoted to anything you can imagine
even the unimaginable,
and the devout, the second last chapter says,
there are the devout all around you-
philosophers, the devoted, the devout,
all awaiting your next performance.
Page(s) 34
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