Langspiel
New lamps for old
sang the harp
prepare for sorrow
and snow
for sleeping
on a bare floor
New lamps for old
sang the harp,
be glad to eat alone
in the cold kitchen
to walk by the golden cliff
along the sunlit tide line
Get used to the hard work
of it
sang the harp
silver spoon
in time’s mouth
mote
in your eye
New lamps for old
new lamps
for old
sang the harp
Along the great moon
Along the great moon
comes brassbold dog-tired day
looking for a fight
driven and drifting
by the great everything-is-mine moon
what the eye remembers
is a tear is it?
what the ear recalls
the hand that stung it?
what the street remembers
isn’t true?
(that’s true)
along the great moon
comes the bus brandishing
its red tongue
the river standing for nonsense
The Shard
lovely lovely loverly Shard
goal of all urban climbers
(Alain Robert’s nabbed from the building
before he…)
The Shard
glass mast of tallest sailing ship
steeple-singer
jumped-up one
vertical thinker
multi-use Shangri-la
moon’s bitch
(published in In The Snowy Air, Templar, June 2014)
Penelope Shuttle lives in Cornwall. Her most recent publications are UNSENT: New and Selected Poems 1980-2012 (Bloodaxe Books) and In The Snowy Air, an Iota/shots pamphlet (Templar) 2014.
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