Les Sylphides (Reading)

By John H.B. Martin

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.