After that, it’s all a blur, just a mass of people rushing past to get somewhere that seems important, and I’m the only one going the other way; twelve years of elbows in the ribs. Places I’d seen countless times through the grimy windows of speeding trains began to seem interesting, to offer the chance… Continue reading Poem: Pilgrimage
Category: Poems
Translations of Italian Poetry
A small archive of translations of Italian poetry, including Pasolini, Ungaretti, Saba, Carducci, G. Rossetti, Cavalcanti, Corazzini, Pascoli: https://scflynn.com/translations-of-italian-poetry/ Previously published in Modern Poetry in Translation and Acumen.
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J XIX – XXII
XIX. TRUST ME I sat for hours creating a poem in my head It was so complete, so perfect that I didn’t need to write it down XX. MULTI-PURPOSE POEM [Written in black marker pen on a kitchen sponge] When a sad poem is required, immerse in water, read and… Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J XIX – XXII
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J XV – XVIII
XV. CLOSE-UP A plain black page might say nothing, or it might be a close-up of a fraction of the first letter of the book that tells you everything XVI. FOCAL POINT [Written on the middle pages of a blank exercise book] How small the things that occupy us … Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J XV – XVIII
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J X – XIV
X. AMBITION [Video film of birds feeding with author’s voiceover] There is no failure like complete success XI. HONESTY [Handwritten in large letters diagonally, with the first and last words disappearing off the page] This is a real poem and I am a real poet XII. DUPLICATION [A photograph of… Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J X – XIV
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J VI – IX
VI. CONFESSIONAL POEM [A sheet of white A3 paper with the tracks of a chicken’s feet dipped in blue paint entering at bottom left and disappearing at top right] VII. CONFORMITY [Recorded on an audio cassette] I once received an anonymous poem that was so good that I had… Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J VI – IX
Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J I – V
I. SECRET POEM [Written in white ink on a closed black box] The content of this poem is invisible and known only to the writer II. BURIAL Going going gone the author is gone do you need him III. BELIEF [Printed on a signed, notarised and officially sealed… Continue reading Poem: From the Notebooks of Poet J I – V
Poem: Still Life With Nuclear Reactor
Sizewell B power station Suffolk, England a white, rounded mushroom mixed in the world’s cauldron the moon brought to ground, gleaming, radiating the giant forbidden fruit on the tree of knowledge a perfect white bottom inviting a pinch but it’s forbidden to touch the earth’s fertile, white belly (from “Exercises in… Continue reading Poem: Still Life With Nuclear Reactor
Poem: Slave
I was not born to this, but time has done its work. On the first day, years ago, I smashed my head against the wall like the Spartan boy seeking death rather than tolerate servitude. But walls soften, and the routine I once so strongly resisted has become instead a barrier against the freedom I could… Continue reading Poem: Slave
Poem: Search Engines
What of those moments when we are touched by a feeling, sense or knowledge that connects us to the inexpressible? I had one as a child. My father very seriously explained that it had been a taste of God’s love. Although I did not understand, this satisfied me for some years. As a struggling physics… Continue reading Poem: Search Engines
Stuart C Flynn 