Derelict
On passing by the gallery
In a run-down, industrial area
He decided to visit
A small exhibition
Featuring a collection
Of new painters-
What intrigued him was the work
Of a local artist...
The model in her every painting -
Was the same man;
His short, blond hair
Depicted in daubs
The colour of straw;
And yet -
His face; his skin
Held an unearthly radiance
As if he were an Angel
Rendered
In the subtlest tints of pure light;
A beautiful soul
Made visible
To more materialistic, ‘City’ types
At which he gazed out
From the dividing frame
Separating
The real from the unreal.
(The visitor reflecting
On which - was which.)
The explanatory
Artist's Notes read :
" always use my husband
As my model
A life without him -
I cannot conceive;
He is my guiding light
In the fear and darkness
Of our times."
Slowly, sadly
The visitor moved away,
Thinking if only-
Any one of the women
At all, in his life
Had ever loved him
In that way,
Then he, too, might -
Have been
Filled with radiant love and light
And not -
The toxic bitterness
That flowed
Through his veins,
In the sharpest,
Coldest cyan-blue,
As he walked past abandoned factories
Derelict as his heart.
Page(s) 53-54
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