Bill Broady
In the Hole in the Wall
The pub under the arches quivers with trains
But no friendly vortex replenishes my Guinness.
We’ve blasted Blair, Sellafield, Dads; we’ve imitated -
Badly - the red kite’s piss-freezing cry.
Passing through nation, nurture and nature to
What we call Our Work: how I only write about
One thing - or two things about one girl. How she
Loves me then we fight or she hates me then we fuck.
How she looks like a goddess but I don’t feel good,
How I never think about weather anymore.
Ian smiles: I’d forgotten, Bill, the way you like
To write from life. His problem’s different:
Whether ‘tis nobler to put things in thoughts
Or thoughts in things. Or both? Or neither? To be
Or not to be numinous? - Or inclusive?
We form the Reductive Expansionist Group:
Our three-word ‘Maximus’ - WE ARE POET. It’s like
That old Punch cartoon: My dear aunt,
One doesn’t write about anything, one just writes.
Sohoitis has come South Of The River.
Now on the TV above the optics
Big Ben stands and spurts and the camera swoops in
To swallow its quarters and strokes. Then there’s people
Running past a badly-mortared orange wall.
A jeep tilted in a rut, a white ball jerking
Across a strobing field. A lottery rollover
Jackpot number: MINE! - if I’d bought a ticket.
And now Roni’s hands, unbidden, are serving
The seventh pints. After which - except for BR’s
Ferrying air - there will be silence in Heaven
About the space of half an hour.
Page(s) 7
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