share


Littoral

We did not know
it would leave us
here. Our sun sits
bored as a dog
at noon, gnawing
the rocks.

 

No stir, no. From
here, the earth might
as well be flat –
this eye its centre,
this stone heart its
own, all

 

horizons one drop
down and off. I
am not yet a
parvenu; ideas,
like books,
cannot

 

content me. There
is no fact much
further than the
reach of an arm –
desperate,
dislocated.

 

This old tongue is
dried to the bone.
I hate the sun,
that attrition of seen
things, which comes home
safe and sound.

 


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

works in Manchester. His plays have been performed at Pleasance Theatre, Camden People's Theatre and the Arcola Theatre. He reviews for PN Review and has studied Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.

READ NEXT

poetry

January 2015

My Beloved Uncles

Tove Jansson

TR. Thomas Teal

poetry

January 2015

However tired of each other they must have grown from time to time, there was always great solidarity among...

poetry

September 2012

Letter from a New City to an Old Friend

Cutter Streeby

poetry

September 2012

Letter from a New City to an Old Friend     [SEAside          Gra-                         –i.m. Ronny Burhop 1987-2010                                                                      ffiti]...

feature

March 2013

Celan Reads Japanese

Yoko Tawada

TR. Susan Bernofsky

feature

March 2013

There are some who claim that ‘good’ literature is actually untranslatable.  Before I could read German, I found this...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required