Featured in New Lyre - Winter 2021
Les Sylphides
By John H.B. Martin
From a Photograph
Flesh longed, at last, to be so impregnated
and so inseminated, like a flower
is pollinated by the breeze … (Or bees).
So, too, the heart called out for deeper comfort
and then man's soul called out for something more
after the body had been violated
and then the mind left easy on that score.
We are all flowers the sunlight cherishes,
our styles made sensitive to every stigma
along the towpath, and beneath the trees.
Beside the willows, and upon the shore,
we gasp for shade and animal fulfillment
in every way, on every outraged floor,
yet never shall we know such perfect ease.
John H.B. Martin is a poet who lives in London, England. He is a graduate of London University and Australia National University and has been writing for many decades. He has written four novels and is working on a fifth. His magnum opus is a six-volume epic poem. Most of his work is yet to be published.
Read the rest of John’s poems from Winter 2022 below.How to Get On in Society & Other Poems
How to Get On in Society By John H.B. Martin I When nature blushes, in the Spring, because the scent of blossom's at its sexiest then, that's when I feel the least ashamed, and yet the most ashamed at Nature's complex wrong since blushing does become the human face
Danaë, Dacha, The Impossible Man & Other Poetry
Featured in New Lyre Summer 2022 Danaë We have been promised gold like this before … But, now it glows on trees, we can't ignore it. One day we'll harvest it … Or mine it, rather, the way we mine our minds with endless words to let the world know just how poor we are.