Tim Cumming
Break-in
I slipped past the cenotaph,
the exchequer, the safety barrier,
I drugged the policeman,
cut the wires, tricked the dogs
with short-term government futures
and crept upstairs
through the tradesman’s entrance
to the first floor,
where machines clacked and hummed,
angelic telegraphs.
I heard movement, voices
in the servants’ rooms.
Shrill talk of groceries
and no answering back.
I was doing well,
the house was awake.
I made for the bedroom
and using government tactics
looked for a place to hide;
in bottom drawers, handbags,
handkerchiefs, dossiers,
a variety of statistics-
in freight, in miles, meters,
of anger, poverty, abandonment.
I wound back the clock
and destroyed the evidence,
twisted telephones and memos
to a tight knot of voices
each the more pressing, various,
distant, and cut them
at the throat.
I broke the safe,
broke out in rumour,
vanished from photographs.
I became lies, vague promises;
history and myth.
Changed my accent
changed my suit
shredded the evidence
spread across the bed
hung in the curtains
was trodden underfoot
was smashed in the ribs
was bludgeoned to death
was present and correct.
I broke out in perfumed sweat
and was never so sober
as then in her bed
when she came to rest
across the land
over the years
I was inside her
and I tell you
she stank.
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