Liz Atkin
Instructions
Take off the clothes that you're wearing
and stuff them to your shape, then make
your head using your head - adapt something
to resemble but pay careful attention
to detail, use a mirror or recent photograph.
Next place your effigy at the window
sitting or standing whichever,
avert the head if not satisfied
with the likeness and place a book,
mug of coffee or newspaper nearby.
Once you've transferred money, housekeys,
etcetera to the relevant pockets
you are free to go, free of your self.
Take a last look at you in the window,
wave if you want to, and remember it's
too late to adjust the glasses, fiddle
with the earring, the parting in nylon hair,
just go, and hurry, don't hang around
since you are starting your new life
as stark naked as the day you were born.
and stuff them to your shape, then make
your head using your head - adapt something
to resemble but pay careful attention
to detail, use a mirror or recent photograph.
Next place your effigy at the window
sitting or standing whichever,
avert the head if not satisfied
with the likeness and place a book,
mug of coffee or newspaper nearby.
Once you've transferred money, housekeys,
etcetera to the relevant pockets
you are free to go, free of your self.
Take a last look at you in the window,
wave if you want to, and remember it's
too late to adjust the glasses, fiddle
with the earring, the parting in nylon hair,
just go, and hurry, don't hang around
since you are starting your new life
as stark naked as the day you were born.
Liz Atkin lives in Newcastle. Her first poetry collection, Glee with a Blue Background, was published in 1999 by Diamond Twig Press, Newcastle.
Page(s) 14
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