Tim Liardet
For the Acquisition of Reading Spectacles
Language returns, lewd and vivid, to the page.
It is a catwalk of cheek-bones and pushy femmes,
of voile, of silk, perfectly focused. I ogle
its slinky points and hips and crevices.
If once my eyesight drove it from the stage
it comes back, strutting its trash-chic, to steal
the photo shoot and set its models swivelling
on their suspiciously high heels.
The light starts flickering, to subtitles.
A universe hides behind a blade of grass, we know,
so how much more of it will hide
out of sight in the wings - roady,
baggage-boy and impresario - behind the hips
of these svelte or bullish creatures?
Monsieur Le verb in slatted leather, avec le bulge,
le butterfly-tattoo, le civilised snarl.
La grandame Adjective in les gossiping mauves,
in drag, organza camisole, that tulle.
Les cross-dressers, in le skimpy lycra, swopping
dusky pink for crimson, crimson for dusky pink;
Mademoiselle La metaphor to oohs and ahs
in seethrough chemise and, beneath it, skin.
Tim Liardet's third collection, Competing with the Piano Tuner, was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. His fourth collection, To the God of Rain, will appear in the Spring of 2003. He is Associate Lecturer in Creative Studies at Bath Spa University College and has recently been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship.
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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