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, Unstill Mosaics 2019, and the about to be release ‘Abandoned Soliloquies’.
Abandoned Soliloquies
by James Walton
Forthcoming …
In Olde Atlantis the ancients raised
A tower so mighty to rival a God
Of bronze and stone and magic wrought
To keep watch beyond the myriad sea
And guard against all signs of calamity
Beneath the feet in chambers arcane
Wizards auras convexed and twisted
Laying in array great levies around
A garland in rites of spell and labours unlisted
To save them from any breach of ground
A thousand ships were tied in knot
To shatter waves in a binding embrace
To make safe the harbour grand
Protecting all from mistaken chance
Of invading wind or enemy brigand
But from the sky in purple rage
A disc did fall from unknown stars
And flipped the continent in a toss
As heaven’s ire had no sake
And drowned the nation beneath its stage
And there upon his head below
In an underground of lightless dim
The massive lord a witness sits
His watery gaze astound with the menace
Of such unenvisioned misery
Now from that eerie haunt
An empire of skulls looks up
Never seeing the threat that came
Mourning to know to dice with fate is not destiny
For it does not care to play
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Poetry in this post: © James Walton
Published with the permission of James Walton