The Ofi Press Magazine

Poem by Degna Stone (UK), Published in Issue 28.

 Degna Stone is an award-winning poet based in Northumberland. She was a runner up in the 2^nd Annual James Kirkup Memorial Prize and was selected for Verb New Voices, a BBC/ACE spoken word development programme, which culminated in the performance of her poem Songs from Whenever on BBC Radio 3s The Verb. She performs regularly at venues across the North East and at poetry festivals including StAnza and Durham Book Festival.  She is co-editor of Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine and edits Deseeded an online poetry anthology. This poem will appear in Degna’s forthcoming pamphlet ‘Record and Play’ which will be published with Red Squirrel Press in April 2013. http://www.redsquirrelpress.com/

After Marwood

I know where it began to end.

I knew it even as we travelled North

with no sense of what we’d find.

We were always cold.

In London. In the Lakes.

Booze kept doubt a drunken slur

inaudible above the landlord calling time.

That night on the moor we could see more stars

than we saw in a decade of London skies.

I couldn’t change.

And what you took for betrayal

I called tactical necessity, calculated risk.

There was nothing special about me

except you.

The road South was almost empty

but no amount of making time

could arrest the disintegration.

I wanted to walk you to the station,

you stopped me. Turned me back

to perform without an audience —

the downpour against my umbrella

gave dutiful applause.

I moved into your room.

I keep the curtains drawn

and there is no time.   

I never knew there would be so little time.

I can’t face the end of this decade,

the rules of the new game.

Even the ice in the cider

can’t numb this ache.

They stopped asking to see me.

My agent stopped ringing.

It never got better.

Bohemia revealed itself as squalor,

the rats moved back in.

Even Danny stopped bringing his medicine.