SOUTH AND WEST

By

Paul Jeffcutt

I read letters from lovers

that couldn’t be saved,

and mine to her –

no answer came.

Packages of rain wrap my salutation, 

a lament chancing westward

across deaf continents

to broken lands that echo far from home.

Navigating the steps  each night

I  throw sentences to clouds

and bribe the air with courtesy for dawn.

I have no prayer – just a shout

held in,  the sound of something without voice 

that seems to give spiritual light.

In the prison of countless cries 

there is no sun.

Beside her native lake

the ground was dark and cold;

she had no shelter

stepping to a place

whose end was always near.

The voice was soft, she said –

these words may never reach you. 

Sweet silhouette,

I fixed upon the glowing sky

and whispered –

my skin dissolves in dew without your touch.

What else could I say?

I’m traveling through the world

that lies before me, endlessly.

It starts to rain as I write this.

Mad heart, be brave.

"South and West" is the Third Prize winning poem in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition (January 2010)

Sources:

‘The Country Without a Post Office’ – Agha Shahid Ali (1997)

‘Stepping Westward’ – William Wordsworth (1803)

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Paul Jeffcutt was born in a hamlet near the border between England and Wales; after travelling widely, he’s settled in Northern Ireland beside the Mountains of Mourne.
 

Paul’s poems have appeared in poetry journals across Europe, Australia and the USA: his work has also regularly featured in anthologies from established poetry presses.
In 2009 Paul was a finalist in the Aesthetica Creative Works Competition and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Prize.

Paul’s first collection of poetry will be published by Lagan Press in 2010.