Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

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

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Alan Marshfield

print this page

Art

And we have art. On the back wall of the Garden Centre
night-rascals get off on glue. They rattle the mixing marbles
in their spray cans of brimstone yellow, lead white, stag-beetle
                                                                                      black,
and scythe yards of brick with graffito tags, with IDs like
                                                                                     ‘Jojo’,
got from viz. mags, farty and wicked, loaded with insurrection.
Apprentices with no meister, no sorcerer main man, except
the chaotic ur-spirit of Orc cooked up among their own number,
they stretch in their droopy bottoms, strain their skinny fingers
like antennae which can smell every each whiff of starlight.
Each tag a blobby abstract, every stroke, bowl, ascender,
                                                                              crossbar
so fat that no gap or ring-zone is void, and the mascara outlines
peak with exuberant control as the yellow glyphs hug together
like fractal devils and angels that would fill every plank of
                                                                                     space.

 

Page(s) 107

Back to top