Poetry | Fiction | Visual Art
The label on my suitcase …
… reminds me I do not belong.
Outside, sky darkens over a line
of could-be-anywhere mountains.
Electric light casts shadows around
plain walls, plain carpet, plain curtains;
and the chair with no cushion
where I drop my wrap; perch
on the king-size bed, careful
not to rumple its dull coverlet;
turn sideways from my Buick
parked by the window. Wait.
Anticipate that knock at the door.
(After ‘Western Motel’, Edward Hopper, 1957, Yale University Art Gallery)
Continue reading “Two Poems by Lesley Burt” →
White paste, skewed lips, hospital green
you have been drained of blood
your heart clenched tight around your throat
your hair is an oil slick, a shield, a shadow
the line down the centre of your face
jags left and right, dodging bullets
your ear is a walking cane
your shoulders an encampment
asteroids your eyes
Continue reading “Remember Breton: A New Poem by Mary Jacob” →
Totes Meer
after Paul Nash.
In the time it would take for the light from the moon
to evaporate the oceans we could begin to
pile up an island with the collected dreck of wars. Downed
planes, tanks like evacuated beetles and other
chewed vehicles would provide rigor mortis foundations.
The island would be looking as if it was badly
tin foiled. Then we could skim the globe, lifting bits up
like finger nails – acned sabres, tobacco
cannons and mistakable buttons. But after the obvious
litter how do we then reclaim all the flint
axe-heads for some placement? Do we include found pots
and pans once loved by men more than
pikes and javelins? And what of the articles of the innocent –
was the trunk of sleeping schoolbooks never
opened after a certain siren? Were the child’s ditched
bike and the winded radio still tuned
to a mother’s favourite station forgotten beyond a rupture?
longexposuremagazine.com