Judy Kendall
Foreigners
Foreigners are all the same,
exotic creatures
keen on noise.
Doughnut complexions,
and fiery tempers
when not dipped in saccharine.
They prefer flesh to fish.
Filled to capacity
with selfishness,
they look after their own
first. They do not think it wrong.
There is a distinct smell of old milk.
Their sugar levels are uncertain,
liable to explode.
And most of them possess
a careless flair
for turning the neatest room
into dishevelment.
They cannot gauge politeness,
their talents do not extend
to delicate matters
- it is not in their make up
poor earthworms.
They cannot sit still
and have a tendency to wriggle.
Their women are loud,
noses mostly irresistible
and faces exceedingly unflat
(although they wrinkle early).
A foreigner is always big,
you never see a small one.
Judy Kendall works at a Japanese university, writing poetry and translating Japanese Noh, Kyogen and haiku. She keeps in touch with the UK through email, the net and scattered magazine subscriptions. Recent poems of hers have appeared in Still, Other Poetry and Rialto.
Page(s) 101
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