Poetry

Six poems from 2012-present; ‘The Fox…’ and ‘A Quanta of Lines’ published in Notes Annual: One (2014), all others either published in Notes fortnightly magazine, or unpublished; ‘In-Flight Entertainment’ commended as one of the ten best for Cosmo D-H Poetry Prize in 2021.

In-Flight Entertainment

   1

Over a city of raked coals, one has
full dominion - in a manner of speaking.

   2

Phenomena go in spirals up here - circles and tricks.

For example, we are touching down once more 
at Gatwick, only this time, 

the wheels are skidding, and the original,
tragic goat bleats in me: you’ve got to be kidding.

   3

Zen-like, in the dim light 
of the fuselage - a pilot’s voice: 

er how long is uh a piece of string 
if you err splice it into itself?

(A necklace for the throat
of a son, or a daughter.)

The stewardess goes to check.

   4

I fold up my tray.

   5

... a variety of channels, you are free 
to tune in to all kinds of quality... 
flannels are hot-citrus and...

   6

The sun setting, our 
whole journey home - 
it felt like forever.

   7

The engine tone sinks to my recline, 
a passenger who plays with time
as it concertinas and dilates.

Re: (No Subject)

Matty, here is something that I did:
dug back through our old emails

and found, as if for the first time, 
songs, and plans we had made –  

that jaunt to a white wine region 
like a couple of just-retired,

couple-of-kids, grey-haired chaps
(long-since) just catching up – 

and for one that didn’t come off,
by way of apology, I sent on 

a sixties tune that naturally you knew. 
You sent back… mate – it’s on now: 

never got it until today, but it’s Wilco – 
‘One Sunday Morning’, on repeat,

reminding me, not only 
of Bonnie Prince Billy’s debut, 

but of every-single-other-thing else,
renewed, when shared with you.

   * i.m. Matt Ingram (1992-2022)

The Sick Rose (Version 2.0)

You may no more force the rose
to open up before its day

than use the image as she flies
to conjure something more to say.

A Quanta of Lines

I floated down a river,
but it was also a lake.
Linear yet spatial – O
I cleft a gentle wake.

The Fox Calls the Logos Sour

I cannot penetrate to what it is:
juicy on the vine; if I could
I would squish it between my toes
and press a wine. Slip the world, but

in life only the words change
and I am an animal,
hopping forever,
for grape.

Scene from an Interior

The airing clockwork 
of a waking dream,
my head aslope the glass.

I tune finer water.