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

Of the many fervent discussions that interrupted the taking of tea and cakes at the celebrated south coast tea-rooms, none was more hotly contested than the question of the shape of the universe. There were those who claimed that it had no form as such. Finky Benson’s view was that it resembled nothing so much as the Indian culinary phenomenon known as tarka dall. ‘In this dish,’ declared Pinky, ‘the chefs of the sub-continent nave recreated, in microcosm, the wholeness of which we are but but tiny, insignificant parts.’ After much reflection and a pause for buttered tea-cakes Bob Mitchell is reputed to have rejoined that he saw the universe more as a peshawari nan-bread, with humanity akin to a single almond on its doughy flesh. ‘However, ‘ he concluded, ‘ a peshawari nan-bread is of infinitely greater value, for who could mop up the leavings of a chicken dhansak with the universe?’ This observation appeared unanswerable and the conversation moved on to other subjects - the whereabouts of the wandering poet, the latest Len Deighton novel, the annotated edition of Kick Spokes’ sonnets, Kingsley Amis’s vicious attacks on the latest feminist couplets of Dora Clamms in the columns of ‘The Spectator’. But the matter was not allowed to rest. Did the universe have form or did it not? By what dimensions could it be defined? Were time and space a delusion indulged by the whole of humanity? The debate raged the length of several pots of Earl Grey and a whole pile of buttered tea-cakes. At one point a tearful Pinky Benson was moved to state his belief that form itself was a concept of dubious stability, invoking the example of a piece of tandoori chicken that had supposedly all but disintegrated under the combined onslaught of his knife and fork. ‘Things fall apart, ‘ he concluded, and from that point on was lost in gloomy misgivings of his own so that not even the sight of Bob Mitchell singing a Flexostructuralist ditty whilst simultaneously downing pints of Earl Grey from the wrong side of the cup could stir him to laughter. The problem was, of course, insoluble. The party broke up with the embittered words of Dora Clamms ringing in its ears. ‘The universe was created by a man for men, so I shouldn’t be surprised if it was created in the shape of a man. ‘ A weary Bob Mitchell was heard to mutter something under his breath at this point but, when challenged, declined the invitation to repeat his observations.