Matt Simpson
A Bummer
Only in Oz is Elgar called
a bloke! G'day, Sir Ed!
I'm tuned in to brightn-
breezy Classic FM
in Launceston - a Specialist,
says the visa, an amiable
grey-bearded British poet,
says the Press.
Below, the brown river
is sneaking in again,
repainting the crags of Cataract Gorge,
a dumpy tourist paddle-boat
like something off a roundabout,
is gaudily chugging past,
its p.a. barking There
above you to your right...
*
Launceston wasn't fun for you
in those willow-pattern days,
trundling in in that knocked-up carriage
with your old servant Godbold
decked out in his suit of velveteen,
tall black shiny hat, shot belt, gun.
And what a fog! You imagined a huge
cauldron of steam. And, as always,
perky with opinion,
you ventured the siting of the town
an unaccountable blunder. Despite masts
tangling prettily above the wharf,
handsome church at every turn,
river and well-stored shops,
you winced at the squalor, filth,
as if sensing the end of flitting
might insist on this. Clutching faith
in the sunnier side of things,
you left in a pelting thunderstorm.
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
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- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- 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