Poem
Tim Liardet
THE WATER-HALT
THE WATER-HALT
THE WATER-HALT
The sshsshssh, the chambery smell of the darkwere borne from room to room by the Chapel official
in sniffs, her sideways glances, even in the look
with which she turned out of the candle’s blue-ringed circle
with over-earnest tact: the crucifix above your toes
offered proportion to sacrifice – its striped dazzling image
waylaying the retina among the shadows
when I confronted your final, fuck-it-all visage:
you might have moved, brother, but couldn’t slip
the shackle of muscles which almost secured
a smile, thumbed and moulded to reshape
the malleable substance – your grim composure.
And for the more, there was only less;
and for your brow a freezing, terrible kiss.
© 2007, Tim Liardet
From: The Warwick Review Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2007
Publisher: The Warwick Review, Coventry
From: The Warwick Review Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2007
Publisher: The Warwick Review, Coventry
Tim Liardet
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1959)
Tim Liardet was born in London in 1959 and was educated at the University of York. He has worked variously in the fields of cabinet-making, information technology and marketing, and lived for several years working solely as a freelance writer and critic. During this period he taught at the second-largest young offenders’ prison in Europe, drawing on this experience to write his prize-winning co...
Poems
Poems of Tim Liardet
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THE WATER-HALT
The sshsshssh, the chambery smell of the darkwere borne from room to room by the Chapel official
in sniffs, her sideways glances, even in the look
with which she turned out of the candle’s blue-ringed circle
with over-earnest tact: the crucifix above your toes
offered proportion to sacrifice – its striped dazzling image
waylaying the retina among the shadows
when I confronted your final, fuck-it-all visage:
you might have moved, brother, but couldn’t slip
the shackle of muscles which almost secured
a smile, thumbed and moulded to reshape
the malleable substance – your grim composure.
And for the more, there was only less;
and for your brow a freezing, terrible kiss.
From: The Warwick Review Vol. 1, No. 1, March 2007
THE WATER-HALT
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