David Ashbee
Skateboarders
Hip art this
if hip’s not too dated
for this understated cool.
Soon as school’s folded
they’re back
working at flips and twists
in churchyard and precinct,
from ramp or speed-hump
soaring up like Harriers,
a metre nearer the moon
a moment only, until
smack!
they hit tarmac with a
crack that scatters cats.
The pigeons that wheely-hop the slabs
have given ground
to these patchwork jackdaws
with their neck-jerk promenading
going for the burn with
alley ballet.
Their buskin garb is baggy and patched,
obligatory and shabby
the branded baseball caps.
Rattling good stuff their poetry,
lyrical in snatches,
their dialect garbled,
mono
syllabic
as rap.
if hip’s not too dated
for this understated cool.
Soon as school’s folded
they’re back
working at flips and twists
in churchyard and precinct,
from ramp or speed-hump
soaring up like Harriers,
a metre nearer the moon
a moment only, until
smack!
they hit tarmac with a
crack that scatters cats.
The pigeons that wheely-hop the slabs
have given ground
to these patchwork jackdaws
with their neck-jerk promenading
going for the burn with
alley ballet.
Their buskin garb is baggy and patched,
obligatory and shabby
the branded baseball caps.
Rattling good stuff their poetry,
lyrical in snatches,
their dialect garbled,
mono
syllabic
as rap.
Page(s) 16
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