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Back Room Poets
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    • Sophia Argyris - Lunar Maria
    • Rip Bulkeley - A Rational Anthem
    • David Burridge - Not In Service
    • Mark Leech - To Go to NuL
    • Deborah Mason - Foot Rot
    • Jennifer A. McGowan - Walking in the Afternoon: 1
    • Inge Milfull - Harmed
    • David Olsen - Seaside Nocturne
    • Paul Surman - History
    • Merryn Williams - Eheu Fugaces
    • Pat Winslow - Atlantic
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                                                                                ATLANTIC

                                                                 The trick is to launch yourself flatwise, to fly, as it were,
                                                                  like in those childhood dreams where you’d long-belly over

                                                                  grass and hedges, fences and trees. Do this without thought
                                                                  or prevarication. The intention is to beat straight into it,

                                                                 clean as a pin through the cold salt-scrubbing green.
                                                                 Cold unbolts and unlocks, unscrews all that’s been

                                                                 holding you tight for so long. On your back now, hanging still
                                                                 like a dead one, buoyant, heart knocking. Keel over, kick heels,

                                                                 crawl, churn, arm over arm, splice like a shark,
                                                                 slice like a double-sided windmill. Switch to backstroke,

                                                                 breast, a ladling scoop, head below and up, then slow
                                                                 dog-paddle. Wade out, thigh deep, preceded by your shadow,

                                                                a perfect dark replica of yourself climbing from the olive drab,
                                                                dragging seaweed, an ungainly lumber over hot stones, slab

                                                                footed on glittery sand, mica speckled, and slump, shocked
                                                                by gravity, by the dull dead thump of human weight.

                                                               © Pat Winslow
                                                               Winner of the Guernsey International Poetry Competition 2013


































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