Tim Liardet
Music
Cast your palm close
over the bodywork, its swarm of gleams;
speak their names softly, with a sort of reverence:
Prelude, Impreza, Laguna, Celica… .
See how light glances off
their bossy flanks, skidding along the wind-lines;
how their valves close, open to utter
a moderated growl.
But stolen, that is the word;
possession, that means, for an hour
which is all they could wish for, like everything in nature
that blooms for a moment,
and withers down, and is incinerated.
These, says the prison shrink,
are the bumper-wide grins and pedals on which they play
their gaspy symphonies of disaffection.
Afterwards, of course, they must be burned
to so much kettle-black shell
like any thrashed Wurlitzer
never to be played again — any more of it
merely second hand:
burned in case there remains
the finest split-end of a human hair
or gust of energy or a word
strung from pedal to pedal, or hovering
over the valve like a growl.
over the bodywork, its swarm of gleams;
speak their names softly, with a sort of reverence:
Prelude, Impreza, Laguna, Celica… .
See how light glances off
their bossy flanks, skidding along the wind-lines;
how their valves close, open to utter
a moderated growl.
But stolen, that is the word;
possession, that means, for an hour
which is all they could wish for, like everything in nature
that blooms for a moment,
and withers down, and is incinerated.
These, says the prison shrink,
are the bumper-wide grins and pedals on which they play
their gaspy symphonies of disaffection.
Afterwards, of course, they must be burned
to so much kettle-black shell
like any thrashed Wurlitzer
never to be played again — any more of it
merely second hand:
burned in case there remains
the finest split-end of a human hair
or gust of energy or a word
strung from pedal to pedal, or hovering
over the valve like a growl.
Page(s) 39
magazine list
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- 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