Paul Groves
The Wrong Bouquet
I remember the essence of the Rhine
in Teheran’s streets: not blood flowing like wine
but wine flowing like blood into the drains.
Khomeini’s supporters thought he was divine.
The Shah had just been toppled. People shouted
for joy, claiming a tyrant had been routed.
Palace cellars opened their rich veins.
Basic rules of handling were flouted.
I sat before the television, blinking
with disbelief. My Waitrose vin de table
in its chichi glass produced a sinking
feeling. This was history I was drinking
from the Philips portable. Such waste!
The crowds embodied an intemperate haste,
insurgents conquering the Tower of Babel
with one insistent voice. Where was their taste
for vintage excellence? They could have sold
these miracles of liquid foreign gold
and used the proceeds to relieve the poor
had not brute force applied a stranglehold.
Somewhere I seemed to hear an auctioneer
invite an offer. ‘Now, a glorious year
for Chateau Latour - 1964.
What am I bid?’ I wiped away a tear
as clarets hit the dust and zealots cheered.
1979 instead was here:
desperately unsteady, with a smell
of coffin-wood and cordite and pure fear.
Determinedly I muttered, ‘What the hell’,
downed my plonk, and watched time’s carousel
revolve again, all heat and noise and hate
as frenzied henchmen wrecked another crate.
Page(s) 19
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