Three Poems by James Dowthwaite

"In the soft breathing of the city’s hours, / the town heaves"

Iterations of the Ziggurat

London, 2023

I

The lights are insistent
like sequins on a ballgown,
calling the shadows to them.

II

A great needle pricks the night
and the city gathers around the hole,
limiting it.

III

The Ziggurat is in the city
like a dancer who stills to poignancy
while the room around them keeps turning
for a divine moment.
And all of its meaning is there
in that supple stillness
between the hush and the applause. 

IV

Like a great angel,
it watches the night,
guarding the god enclosed in its glass;
the wounded priests are restless about it.
In the darkness they turn
and pray
beyond the tower.

V

In the soft breathing of the city’s hours,
the town heaves,
and the purple light of the tower wavers.

VI

From the bridge, it is interrupted
by the top of a passing bus, by large hotels,
and your attention is caught by the sound
of the river raising its metallic strings
or autumn waiting in the staid potential
of a grey wind, disappointing the light.

VII

God of the skyline,
hanging like a poltergeist
in the threshold of an ancient house.
grey with the greyness; glass in the cold.

---

Song Against Ghosts

Translated from the Akkadian


You dead ones, why won’t you leave me alone?
you citizens of ruined states,
you people of nothing but bone.
I have not snuck in to the gatherings at your cultic places,
so why are you bothering me at mine?
Let the goddesses of destruction and hell call you up,
or the gods’ scribe, let him summon you,
with his lapis lazuli and carnelian pen.

---

Reclining Nude

They asked if we saw the sunset over Babylon,
the event itself, that cooling element
of a way of life drifting off its edges,
and I said no, no, we were lost in other things;
you are so unfortunate, they tell me,
to live on the edge of Armageddon.
Well maybe, but the fire throws such fine light
on the curve of your breasts as you breath in,
and I’d rather watch you raise your knee
in a slow passionate outline against the day.
The sun is the background to your body
or what little light we let between the walls
when you lay on your back, stretched out, facing the bath
running your hands over the air, kissing the light.

---

James Dowthwaite is Junior Professor of English Literature and Culture at the University of Mainz, Germany. He writes primarily on the fin de siècle. His poems have appeared, amongst other places, in Acumen, Allegro, The Dawntreader, The High Window, The Martello Journal, The Needle, Stone Poetry Quarterly, Strix, and Poetry Salzburg Review. He lives in Hamburg with his family.