James Ashley
Introducing Chinese Whispers
I
This poet is
The bomb exploding on England
(Disintegrated particles assume the shape of
rhinoceros horns)
This poet is
In a bookshop, and the latest
Poetics make him long for the days
When everything, cars, Walls ice-
Cream advertisements, even The Police,
Were stylized. Misunderstood
Old Testament Saint…
On a postcard stand, above
Some kitsch message of
God’s benevolence and love,
Lit like an angel - promising
More (and more on the scaffold)
Is she dead now, this film star?
Did she take something in the night?
Or worse, has she lived to taste
The shadow fruit? O.T.S.
How you digress!
This poet buys
And, standing in the door,
Upstart and his waggish mates
Down for the match, the bright sunlight
In a conspiracy
To make him feel uncomfortable;
Black & white
Denatures anxiety.
II
Two o’clock, Saturday afternoon.
The F-boys and the Scallywags,
The Policemen, the Police Horses,
Police cones (rhinoceros horns)
RHINOSEROS HORN?
the answer to the problem is the
bomb we have the bomb
because we have the bomb because
III
female stranger
her mac’s transparent plastic sheen
can’t disguise a cocktail dress
(or gas or the river or
barbiturates on chemists’ shelves
England’s past
some 50’s B film never seen
something of Jean
Kent or poor Joan Dowling)
it starts to rain
her mac’s transparent sheen
(a lolly ice on a hot day)
attracts the headlights of a car
........
The meaning of life is
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