James Walton

James Walton

James Walton was a librarian, a farm labourer, and mostly a public sector union official. He is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers. He has been shortlisted for the ACU National Literature Prize, the MPU International Prize, The William Wantling Prize, the James Tate Prize, and is a winner of the Raw Art Review Chapbook Competition. His poetry collections include The Leviathan’s Apprentice 2015, Walking Through Fences 2018, and Unstill Mosaics 2019.

 

Unstill Mosaics: The Book of Love, Loss, and Longing
by James Walton
Format: Paperback – 114 pages
ISBN-10: 1925949109
ISBN-13: 978-1925949100
Publisher: Busybird Publishing (12 June 2019)

 
Tithonus and Dawn

do not fall in love with a God
when they say forever
it is the duration of vanity only

out of my breathless ossuary
these slow seconds
turn within themselves

a tapestry made of stone

Eos asked him to make me eternal
we were to be beautiful together
a hand aside the mouth of Zeus

his incremental curse of immortality
a hover in the white noise
of this bitter tea

once to kiss the feet of stars
no longer she breaks upon me
I do not live I do not die

locked in this closet
talking a babble of dispossession
my words hear themselves

the momentary visit of light after night
occasionally to shine on my withering
where I age in shadow forever waiting

without the strength to hold a stutter of lamp

 
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Poetry in this post: © James Walton
Published with the permission of James Walton