Degas’s Business Card

The truth-teller draws from a pocket the laminated slide of mm 85 x 55. You read – it turns pellucid. Through the foramen you see the blade that cuts a lover’s sup and dulled lime drunk alone in place of absinthe’s sleight of bliss. Here life ferments and the contact details for the artist sit

Kindly exit

at the door or retire through the window. That will suffice. Better yet, via my ears make your retreat as swiftly and in neat compactness as a ready ball of orange wax or next time I spit, roll out over my tongue. Or next when through my eyeball I aim a withering look, consider that

Every Sign of the Zodiac

The radio station holds a ‘phone-in about How to Seduce Every Sign of the Zodiac. Every star-sign, says the guest expert, has a romance silhouette. Taurus to Scorpio sound good. Pass on the Virgos and Cancerians. 22/12/13 — Anything to do with signs and symbolism pulls at my imagination. Just today I was thinking about

On the occasion of a dinner party in Kennington

I know I said I’d bring a poem but then I half forgot – I’d agreed to go to Ladies’ Pond to meet a friend and swim, Down the road and to the right. Oh dear, there’s something left behind; Pavement Walker Jacob’s Dream Huckleberry Thing and Pizza, Thwack! keywords from Ninja turtles strike supreme

Afloat

Onto my raft of plaits I shall step, with dreams of Alsation-men. — This short poem dates from the last quarter of 2013 when I did indeed have a dream about a raft of plaits and Alsation-men. Perhaps it was a subconscious mash-up of my plaited rag rug  (A craft project that’s still incomplete!) and

Bursting art

Follow the cherry-stem narrow and fine. It bends at the thrill of being anonymous. — Twitter: @BeadedQuill Facebook: BeadedQuill The books: Emily’s Poems for Modern Boys and Shining in Brightness

Pairings

The soda needs fountain; the lolli needs pop. Pink milk goes for shake; red counters seek top. On jukeboxes rave and motors rev bike. Heat moves towards wave, while cream swirls for ice. Young leather struts jackets, then shy ankles flash socks. The point brings us to make-out where our lips search for lock. —

Philip’s Log: Entries about my moonlit sylph

During the last two months of 2013 I entered a reading glut. It had taken me much of the year to finish the two Orhan Pamuk novel’s Snow (2004) and The Black Book (1994/ 2006). A friend even commented over the summer that perhaps I was deliberately taking my time with Snow because I was

A quiet night preludes the festivities

‘Tis the night before I head off to find Christmas. with an inflatable bed and homemade biscuits. All through this lodging there is hardly a clatter; only Depeche Mode on my laptop and my landlady’s patter. To the front door she shuffles and hooks up the chain. Yesterday’s outside, while we’re bolted in. 22/12/13 —

Without realising it, the postman leaves a poem

Something for you –   heads the blue card   This something is it a poem? a sonnet, a verse, an enveloped ode?   Your item is   a parcel. It could not be delivered. No-one was at home on this date 14. Dec at this time 1pm   for the verse? No the item