Stephen Boyce
Desire Lines
"... poems that are tender and evocative, passionate and wide-ranging. Highly visual, carefully detailed, and, like the 'desire lines' of the book's title, these poems map and meander, always with a feel for the music of nature and a sense of the urgency of time's passing."
Katherine Gallagher
"... starts with a wonderfully atmospheric poem and never lets one down thereafter; it's marvellously sustained."
John Godfrey
"I like it that you describe a world I recognise in language I understand, yet still surprise and intrigue me, make me look again, be wiser for it."
David King
Published: 21April 2010 by Arrowhead Press
ISBN: 978 1 904852 27 8
Pages: 75 Hardback
Price: £10.00 +p&p
Photographing Marjorie
He has contrived it so that everything
is at a jaunty angle; the brim
of your summer hat, your smile, the ship’s slim
rail which you are leaning back on
in your white raincoat – collar halfway
up – the matching clutch bag, even the spray
from the tipsy waves. He is pleased with the line
of your gaze – past his shoulder, towards Dieppe
perhaps – so that I can almost see him step
back, the silver Voigtlander pressed to his cheek,
adjusting the focus ring as he squints
through the viewfinder. The light glints
on the sea. He holds you both in this moment
for ever, one seen, the other not, like the weave
of sun and shadow in the folds of your sleeve.
Soundless
I brought home wild marjoram,
scabious and a pink parsley
to catch your eye in the little kitchen,
leaving my hurt pride by the roadside.
After all our talk I’d wanted to bring
butterflies to stir the air in the bedroom:
flitting blues, graylings, gatekeepers
with watchful eyes, and a jersey tiger
moth, its scarlet flash so startling.
But my hands were too slow in the heat
of the afternoon and, besides, in time
one of us would break the silence,
though the butterflies – soundless
and unexpected – go on
slipping through our fingers forever.
​
