Howard Wright
Other Destinations
Lift off. El cheapo holiday. A boiled sweet.
Drinks from the hostess trolley until our feet
dust the luminous fingerprints
we almost connect for half an island.
It takes a lifetime, another sweet, then touchdown.
Arrivals baggage-music on an endless loop;
air-conditioning blowing hot and cold
in the luxury coach through nighttown,
sandblasted alleys along a western spaghetti
of Marlboro-toting, Pepsi-swilling billboards
heading north from the purgatory of the Costas
and refineries decked out like grottoes.
The hotel's inner life is lit by a shallow pool.
We park our suitcases on the balcony before
building the bed, but one hour ahead of our bodies
our minds already glow with other destinations.
Drinks from the hostess trolley until our feet
dust the luminous fingerprints
we almost connect for half an island.
It takes a lifetime, another sweet, then touchdown.
Arrivals baggage-music on an endless loop;
air-conditioning blowing hot and cold
in the luxury coach through nighttown,
sandblasted alleys along a western spaghetti
of Marlboro-toting, Pepsi-swilling billboards
heading north from the purgatory of the Costas
and refineries decked out like grottoes.
The hotel's inner life is lit by a shallow pool.
We park our suitcases on the balcony before
building the bed, but one hour ahead of our bodies
our minds already glow with other destinations.
Howard Wright teaches Art History at the University of Ulster in Belfast. In 2002 he won second prize in the Leicester Open
Competition and appeared in the Peterloo Poets anthology.
Competition and appeared in the Peterloo Poets anthology.
Page(s) 7
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