Languorous?
- Stephen Kingsnorth

- Nov 7
- 1 min read

After the Walk, by Lyn Aylward (England) 2023 [Public Domain]
Languorous, as vowel stretch,
each glyph laid out in sounding shift,
aligned with sleek unbothered reach,
with dreams of scents, encounters, rest,
now prone, exhausted, inked arms linked.
On crumpled pastel, crease and fold,
all pillows, hills of dimpled sheets,
in crevice, blues, pink, yellows, green,
seen stream and sky, buds, blossom, sward,
addressed on fabric, ruffled, flesh.
Carved capitol above slab slump;
a classic wage for time-paid age.
brawn muscles through to knuckle skin,
arch, zygomatic, prominent;
what causes stare in emptied air?
Poole pottery of former age,
a cluttered, indecisive space,
past glories, present to be faced,
what questions posed above the bed
to float around, pets unaware?
This is no more the languid tired,
nor lackadaisical in mind,
dynamic contrast laid to wrest -
so what ensues from contemplate?
What afterthought has walk aroused?




There’s a lovely blend of physical detail and reflection here. The poem keeps shifting focus—from the body, to the bedclothes, to the objects in the room—and those layers reflect the chaos of the room within which she lies so deep in thought
What a lovely painting and you describe it so eloquently.