Jet-lag in Los Angeles
Wake in the early hours and you can hear
the whistle of the half-mile train
that hauls its slow freight all along
the backs of the unending suburbs,
hooting, punctiliously, at each crossing street.
In silences between the air-conditioning,
the refrigerator switching off and on,
that breathy diphthong seems
a reassuring sound – as if it tells
how old-style work continues to be done
and, while you try to sleep, the world goes on.
the whistle of the half-mile train
that hauls its slow freight all along
the backs of the unending suburbs,
hooting, punctiliously, at each crossing street.
In silences between the air-conditioning,
the refrigerator switching off and on,
that breathy diphthong seems
a reassuring sound – as if it tells
how old-style work continues to be done
and, while you try to sleep, the world goes on.
Tony Lucas lives in London. His collection, Rufus at Ocean Beach, was published by Stride in 1999.
Page(s) 8
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