John Lindley
Exhibit 'A'
Pride of place -
rigid by the booth,
each new movie trailered in his given past.
Alternately dead from too much dope,
too much sex, too much life;
counterfeit wife a widow to the weed,
fantasy kids orphaned by drink.
He's scapegoat, leper and portent,
the destiny of the depraved;
one of those scorched examples of God's vengeance
who explode from Hell's furnace
to Hell's Kitchen and beyond.
He speaks in a language he'd not recognise
with a voice he never owned
of a past he never had,
his crimes writ large
on a card around his neck.
It can't go on. Under the masks
the real Elmer McCurdy
must stand up and be counted.
Besides, he can't stay -
there's a train in an arcade at Long Beach
he'll always be in time for.
rigid by the booth,
each new movie trailered in his given past.
Alternately dead from too much dope,
too much sex, too much life;
counterfeit wife a widow to the weed,
fantasy kids orphaned by drink.
He's scapegoat, leper and portent,
the destiny of the depraved;
one of those scorched examples of God's vengeance
who explode from Hell's furnace
to Hell's Kitchen and beyond.
He speaks in a language he'd not recognise
with a voice he never owned
of a past he never had,
his crimes writ large
on a card around his neck.
It can't go on. Under the masks
the real Elmer McCurdy
must stand up and be counted.
Besides, he can't stay -
there's a train in an arcade at Long Beach
he'll always be in time for.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The