Trace My fingers walked to the fourth intercostal space. This is where I placed the first gel-backed tab. The next went opposite, across the sternum, on the nipple line. Easy then to make a descending arc, attach the leads until a trace appeared; the heart. Unlike in films when it stopped for good the line … Continue reading Two poems by Roy Marshall
Tag: Shoestring Press
Poem to Ivor Gurney by John Greening
Dartford To Ivor Gurney A clear Spring morning. The G20 leaders assembling in London. An announcement about the abolition of the old … Continue reading Poem to Ivor Gurney by John Greening
‘Blackbird in Winter’ by Roy Marshall
Blackbird in Winter He’s on a branch above my head velvet feathers at touching distance, yellow ringed eye locked to mine. Is an alarm call frozen in his breast, the urge to fly curtailed by heavy air, or is it to preserve energy and heat that he keeps still? Can he see in me a … Continue reading ‘Blackbird in Winter’ by Roy Marshall
‘Dying Arts’ by Roy Marshall
Dying Arts As the last window cleaner born during the age of whistling stashes his bucket and flannel and millions of ear plugs play into millions of closed circuit skulls it seems the art is only practised now by dry lipped ex-paperboys in retirement homes as they pour a morning brew becoming as rare as … Continue reading ‘Dying Arts’ by Roy Marshall
‘Exposition du Système du Monde’ by Jonathan Taylor
Exposition du Système du Monde My daughter’s blah-blah babbles coalesce into proto-words, “hiyas” and “mamas” condensing from the nebular static, planetesimals amongst the diffuse molecular cloud sucked inwards over what must seem to her millions of years by gravity towards a centre round which – as if she were acting out Laplace’s equations … Continue reading ‘Exposition du Système du Monde’ by Jonathan Taylor
‘Instant Karma’ by Roy Marshall
Instant Karma The office cleaner sings beautifully and in Hindi. I ask her what her song means. 'The Lord says, I will give you what you want, when the time is right.' She leaves a world bright with belief, the mopped floor under my feet, the emptied bin of me. (from Gopagilla, first published … Continue reading ‘Instant Karma’ by Roy Marshall
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