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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Gautam Naik

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Marginalia

If you’re one of those who likes to sit
Until the theater empties and credits roll,
Please tell me,
Exactly, what’s a grip?
And that gaffer boy - what’s he do?

Also, why do they always have to leave
Those tiny stickers in pairs of jeans,
That say, ‘Inspected by Marge,’ or Woo,
Or Worker No. 17?

Or, if you’re cut from finer cloth
Please explain why the artist deigned
To put the small, frightened dog
Into the masterpiece - isn’t that strange?

And I’ll freely confess:
I almost never read the stuff in a book
Where acknowledgements are made
To the long-suffering publisher, mum, Uncle Larry and Lou.
All the tribe, you know, without whom...

Yet, last night, when I came across,
In a library book I never quite gave back,
The part where Rilke says
‘You must change your life,’
This girlish scrawl, “Get me out of here
                     And I will –‘

It sent me whistling out into the night
To call back that dog I’d seen,
But barely found Sirius, in the farthest dark.
Perhaps you also heard the faint
                      Interstellar bark?

 

Page(s) 11-12

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