36 Watts

Lighthouses, it seems, take thirty-six watt bulbs
A third of those that shine above me, used
To keep rocks unencrusted by skeletons
Hulls draped like whalebone fossils over stone

How many men does it take to change them?
No joke when so far from shore, remote
And guarded even from repair crews’ boats
By frothing water sheathing points beneath

No men wait within the place these days, no
Bearded keeper, lonely, watching out for
Shadows of things lit too near the rocks
No peaceful stay within this man made spur

Nothing but that single thirty-six watt bulb.

Stuart Sharp,
Beverley.

First submission in!

Stuart Sharp from Beverley is the first ever contributor to this new incarnation of Ancient Heart Magazine. Check out the next post for his poem 36 Watts. Great stuff and thank you Stuart!

Setting course!

The good ship Ancient Heart Magazine is setting sail again. Still based in the old harbour town of Bristol but within the near future we'll be arriving in our new base of Sydney, Australia, another famous harbour city. More news about this will be forthcoming at some point.

For now, let's enjoy the fact that the poetry mag is alive and well again and let's see whose poem will be the very first to be published.

I'm waiting..

Austral

I'll get there, you'll see,
Come hell or high water,
I'll set foot on that blessed land,
That lucky country,
That southern heart that made me long for it.

I'll be older,
And not much wiser,
And certainly no surf dude,
But I will make my way,
And lay my head down somewhere I can call home
For the very first time.

Richard James,
Bristol, UK

Alive and kicking all over again!

Well, here we are again. Some of you may remember the UK poetry magazine with the same title that appeared in print and online for a number of years. Towards the end of its run I found that far too much time was taken up with correspondence, submissions, answering emails and queries and much more besides. It proved to be a distraction from the noble art of poetry and my Muse was not best pleased, I can tell you..

That is why this time around, things will be different. The mag will appear in blog format and rather than submitting your poems by email the process will be thus:

Submissions:

-Leave your poem (just one poem!), your pen name, home town and optional email address as a comment on the last appearing poem/blog post. So, all you need to do is post a comment on the latest blog post here and in due course you may see your poem show up on this blog that just happens to be a poetry magazine.

-Nota Bene: I will not be entering into any correspondence and I won't be acknowledging receipt of your poem or feel obliged to answer any other queries.

-Let's have some fun!