The Literary Review
In the Middle Distance
Windows break themselves
out of grief and spite
Old men walk until their
hearts explode
borne on this tide of bones
This river of snapped and
shattered shovels
This summation, this
blunt blank stroke
Your complaints have been noted
and a catalogue made
of your weeping dust
your helpless desire
and your deeds done
in the dark
in the silence
in the middle distance
We endured, we persisted
We ate everything, every day
Our reward is this spasm
Our solace this tumefaction
Our joy is to
never be warm again
- Philip Newton
Sextant
Mark this spot
Carry it with you
so that
you will never be lost again
This eye sees nothing
This nose detects
the failed and sterile rose
This ear hears only what
you’ve spoken in your
broken sleep
- Philip Newton
Monumental Silence
here in the coldest water
where the soil parts ways
and the drowned mammal
eyes stare ceaselessly
we are winnowed
we are justified
perfected in
strangled lime
i didn’t want to be
your epitaph
i resisted memory
and ran from red tablets
while a howl broke from the deep
and spilled the battered sky and
called through watchful desert holes
there is only so much time
- Philip Newton
Business
Give me what I want
We can iron all this out
Please don’t make me
walk across that gray bridge
I want to come to an agreement
I would like to see you naked
My first preference would in fact be
an ambulance ride
You can play the bugle
You see, it was a hard year
I had to sell everything
And at such cheap prices
I’m not sure I can forgive myself
and I certainly won’t forgive you
Let’s come to terms
Let’s talk confidentially, you and I
Let’s make it squeal
How much worse can it possibly get?
I have it on good authority that
you aren’t all you’re cracked up to be
I’d like to see your accountant
I’d like to see the slightest jiggle
Come on, what will it cost you?
And for just this smallest moment
one you’d certainly never miss
You might give me my revenge
my fondest wish
Who wants to live forever?
- Philip Newton