Issue 21: Iain Britton
POWER POINT IN MONOCHROME
1
the fog clears the jacaranda
it scratches for more space
pushes books into the body of a memoir
time’s transparency
feels tampered with this morning
lives in panes of tinted glass
2
undressed the room
holds its breath a light bulb
swings imperceptibly
shadows pad their fingers
behind old curtains no one
moves the door closes
3
the result is a philosophy for sparrows
a born earth-watcher who keeps
past thoughts locked in a child’s toy car
who holds it tightly too tightly the sun
colours a pathway amongst trees
a dilated stare picks up only the fallen leaves
4
heads on blue plates
decorate the park a camera
follows a camera flash shots
snap & a missing person
is located someone becomes
someone else’s untidy travelogue
5
eating one’s confession
is a trespasser’s act
the stem of a crucifix
emerges from a woman’s throat
she holds it there
as spectators’ coins collide in the rain
6
where the arm drapes
suggests intimacy a caring
possessive notion argued property rights
who’s trafficking what constant
companionship builds walls &
a hair-line crack for sustenance appears
7
from the bus window departure is smudged
a mother waves at the rain at a small boy
running the picture repeats itself
the picture is an artefact without anniversaries
the boy stops at the end of the road the mother
is already fiction
8
call it a gift the star pinned
to a wall’s lapel this Xmas banquet
under lights now off limits
a forgotten festival of celebrations
nobody walks the carpet or occupies
this altar’s pandered preparation
9
summer insinuates bucolic ease
white bodies lying amongst tents
worshipping sunburnt deities
frazzled by intensity
a boy dashes after the graven image
of a blackbird’s song
10
after the performance the comedian
exits the toffee-apple eater exits
the singer of Schubert & a mask painted
eyeless exit the audience
leaves on silence only the mime artist
remains curled up like a small memento
11
kitted out in triplicate the men pause
gannets plunge into the sea the sea
spits them out a Piscean trick is to breathe
underwater observe nature’s impact
birds snatching at fish the men
hooking up ossified offcuts of islands
12
balloons of air choke epiphanies
from happening a woman smokes
she doesn’t acknowledge doesn’t
flicker any emotion she sits in seismic
stillness smoking sipping at thoughts
at use-by date prophecies
Iain Britton has published six collections of poems since 2008, mainly in the UK. Recently, poems have been published or are forthcoming in Cordite, Southerly Journal, Harvard Review, Poetry, Mayday, Stand, Agenda, The Reader, Clinic, The Fortnightly Review, The New York Times, Long Poem Magazine, Poetry Wales and the Journal of Poetics Research. A new collection of poetry The Intaglio Poems was published by Hesterglock Press (UK) in 2017.
Copyright © 2018 by Iain Britton, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
