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

Interview

Issue No. 11

Interview with Alice Oswald

Max Porter

Interview

Issue No. 11

Alice Oswald is a British poet who lives in Devon with her family. Newspaper profiles will inevitably mention the...

poetry

May 2012

Monopoly (after Ashbery)

Sarah Howe

poetry

May 2012

I keep everything until the moment it’s needed. I am the glint in your bank manager’s eye. I never...

poetry

Issue No. 3

The Far Shore

Michael Hampton

poetry

Issue No. 3

Windblown: gone with the summer wind. Windblown: gone with the autumn wind. Windblown: gone with the winter wind. Windblown:...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required