Issue 8: January 2005
Matthew Caley | Matthew Francis | Kathryn Gray | Daljit Nagra | Tim Wells
DALJIT NAGRA
Look we have coming to Dover!
So various, so beautiful, so new ...
Arnold, Dover Beach
Stowed in the sea to invade
the lash alfresco of a diesel-breeze
ratcheting speed into the tide with brunt
gobfuls of surf phlegmed by the cushy
come-and-go tourists prow'd on the cruisers, lording the waves.
Seagull and shoal life bletching
vexed blarnies at our camouflage past
the vast crumble of scummed cliffs.
Thunder in its bluster unbladdering yobbish
rain and wind on our escape, hutched in a Bedford van.
Seasons or years we reap
inland, unclocked by the national eye
or a stab in the back, teemed for breathing
sweeps of grass through the whistling asthma
of parks, burdened, hushed, poling sparks across pylon and pylon.
Swarms of us, grafting
in the black within shot of the moon's spotlight,
banking on the miracle of sun to span
its rainbow, passport us to life. Only then
can it be human to bare-faced, hoick ourselves for the clear.
Imagine my love and I,
and our sundry others, blared in the cash
of our beeswax'd cars, our crash clothes,
free, as we sip from an unparasol'd table
babbling our lingoes, flecked by the chalk of Britannia.
What a Laugh!
That's me with the Groucho Marx outfit
at some hope demo —
that's me blowing all our Monday moans
on a ho ho ho —
that's me from morning to on-the-ropes last bell
going joke to joke —
that's me with nothing funnier than Godot, or
popping back as a ghost —
I know I'm not going out on a song
or a prior-stop gag
though I'm up for the most
toe-rolling
leg-wobbling
belly-blowing
rib-rocking
throat-croaking
cheek-chopping
tear-toppling
Raja's Love Song
All the girls say they love me
all their mums say I'm lovely —
ever since I lived in the clouds.
Ever since you left me
I've been raining on the road
where you first said you loved me ...
'Here we have coming to Dover!' first published in Poetry Review, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Poem 2004.
Available from Amazon.co.uk:
Oh My Rub! (Smith/Doorstop, 2003)