Judy Kendall
Except In Emergency Do Not Remove Life
Allotted to boxes, strapped on by the dollies,
belted up, battened down, besieged by the trolleys.
Hooray up she rises, no duck, sink the fucker!
as something bad seeps from the overhead locker.
A time line is wafting way past my head.
On the air float the scents of the recently dead,
caught in aeroplane light of 4 am
local time. It’s the woodentops, drunk again,
with cup after cup of polystyrene cream tea,
while the storm rocks the cradle above the gray sea.
The music’s a blur, each skull’s on a swivel,
chain videoing shadows of silvery drivel,
sick bags to the ready, hollywood style,
memories misfiring all over the aisle.
belted up, battened down, besieged by the trolleys.
Hooray up she rises, no duck, sink the fucker!
as something bad seeps from the overhead locker.
A time line is wafting way past my head.
On the air float the scents of the recently dead,
caught in aeroplane light of 4 am
local time. It’s the woodentops, drunk again,
with cup after cup of polystyrene cream tea,
while the storm rocks the cradle above the gray sea.
The music’s a blur, each skull’s on a swivel,
chain videoing shadows of silvery drivel,
sick bags to the ready, hollywood style,
memories misfiring all over the aisle.
Judy Kendall lives and works in Japan. She has written plays which have been performed in the UK and poetry which has been published internationally, most recently in AMBIT.
Page(s) 9
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