Matt Simpson
At Drumcliff in 1997
To begin with, is it really W.B.
Georgie's snuggled up to?
It's said the corvette brought
a club-footed Frenchman back
from Roquebrune
to the holy land of Irelaunde.
Under ominous Ben Bulben
that dank September
half-a-century ago, Louis MacNeice,
in a black jostle of brollies,
a huddle of macs and nodding heads,
was just in time
for the soggy interment and casting
a foggy alcoholic eye
on what was meant to be ancestral,
ceremonious, he understood at least
that Georgie's dictating spirits
were more like leprechauns than, from Beyond
who'd said nary a word that Willie might
never join the politic convocation,
of the red-headed rector in County Down,
the Sandymount Corbets, old William
Pollexfen, the smuggler Middleton,
Butlers far back, half-legendary men.
Now here we are today pausing
dutifully At Drumcliff and doing our best
to cast cold eyes on life, on death,
on the lousy cup of what passes for coffee
at the tacky tourist shop.
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