Phlegmatic | Fay Musselwhite
She rattles her choked ribs
up from graffitied streets,
where sentences that roam market walls
and hoardings round stored land
read like the stale breath of banked air,
to where spray won’t be penned,
paint finds no purchase,
and claims spelt out in mass footfall
proved heartier than purse or word.
Here at the wet-lashed gape
of this caged lung she hears it:
bluster and fall, trickled whisper
to broad throated roar;
feels its spit brush her,
stroke her clear.
‘Phlegmatic’ appears in Fay Musselwhite’s debut collection, Contraflow (Longbarrow Press, 2016). Click here for further information and to order the book.
Click here to listen to Fay Musselwhite reading this poem on the banks of the River Rivelin, Sheffield.
The Seven Wonders 
Once more I regretted living so far away from the Peak District, which the painting and poem evoked so vividly. I look forward to the rest. KL
Love Paul Evan’s art and the interplay of Fay Musselwhite’s evocative poetry brings a very different dimension. It’s a stunning combination.
Wonderful. I’ve been out that way today and this reminds me why I have to keep on going back. Lovely sounds in your poem Fay, such a sense of relief once we get to stanza three – and ‘here’!
Great painting.
Many thanks for your comments on the poem and the painting – some more new work will be posted here in the next few weeks…