• scattered spots of blood
• an exploded snake
• a rabbit jumping out of a hat
• a departing train
• a single note on a trumpet or is it a synthesizer?
• a tangled web
• a hand-operated meat mincer
• a man threatening to turn into an icy pond
• a pair of tights
• an upside down exclamation mark
• a dramatic pose
• a squiggle on the floor
• a poetic theory
• a line of chat
• a winning smile
• a little boy lost
• a dinner for two
• a girl and a boy
• a picture of domestic bliss
• screws driven into the floor with a hammer
• unpardonable tension
• a man playing a xylophone
• a chrysanthemum
• cascade of characterisation in the middle of the pub, spot on
• creature of habitual hatred gambolling
• a pyjama top
• the man in this picture looks terribly Jewish
• a pair of sneakers
• a nail driven through a broken floorboard
• a woman on the phone screaming
• a stretch of salt marsh protected by international agreement
• a barrister talking bollocks
• a sweaty sock
• a chequered flag
• an Australian twang
• a shopping arcade
• if you see fire or smoke... do not take any risks
• a speck of dust on a broken window
• I am so tired, darling
• your smiling face
• my smiling face
• a railroad line up the side of the hill from Jericho Valley
• Duty Free is even freer in the air
• an ink stain on my inner thigh
• a fat man in a suit
• an ice cream cone
• all the pebbles which are blue upon this beach
• a fish: a herring, a mackerel sky
• a man smoking a pipe
• you can drive round and round for hours without ever finding a parking meter
• a gale, an open door, two eyes in a winter month
• a mass of turpentine
• screwdrivers fanned out on a coffee table
• a man playing chess against a computer against a tree
• the kind of move a tree makes in a wind
• the populace in general
• polite conversation
• steel girders
• patricide
• pastry cutters
• a man getting off a moving train
• water splashing into a handsome jug
• a pea souper
• the chef of the day
• a dead cicada being eaten by ants
• a dead cicada exploding
• a dead cicada being washed ashore
• a dead cicada falling like snow
• a dead cicada reading braille
• a dead cicada pushing open the curtains
• a pack of brewer's yeast
• an assignation with a whimpering man
• comb binders
• salt spray
• steep hills
• ten past twelve
• grass
• wind
• metabolic disturbance
• a field full of ampersands
• a cat killed, stuffed and set up to look like a galleon in full sail
• a bird-cage going cheap
• a drowned valley
• my oldest friend
• packets of flower seeds
• all the kings horses and all the kings men
• you'd better bet your life
• this is the most important thing I've ever said
• it's gone
• tenacious precision
• a smiling face, a serious face
• I love you, I really do
• I can't, I can't, an open door
• a ruling verb
• a phallocentric forest
• an enlightened clearing
• an unassuming echo of the assumption of the Virgin Mary on a hillside outside Sarajevo
• a train stopping between stations
• a man with a dustbin
• a runabout van
• an inexplicable stoppage
• release of air brakes
• capture of the chief accountant
• a bullshit directive
• a fool
• a tumble in the hay
• a poem on the hob
• a kettle in the ear
• skittishness, tares before bedtime
• kisses in particular
• two groups of four and a plenary discussion
• catty discourse
• splinters of glass
• repetition of a mantra
• kaleidoscope of dolours
• reality
• precision engineering
• exactitude engineering
• plenitude engineering
• hand cream and ear wax
• pointless ambition
• polities of essence
• Oil of Ulay
• extremes of caution
• clarity of fever
• edges of caution
• The Sunday Times
• Treasure Island
• Old Coulsdon
• Purley train crash
• a windy field
• the sight of a windmill
• a balloon burning
• a finicky boy
• Barrack Room Ballads
• bobbles
• parrot cages
• allegiance to the flag
• a squadron of ideals
• bogus salespersons
• flagships, precis, houses, curtains, pages, pains
• planks of wood
• going home
• give me your hand
• a hot breath in my right ear blown hard and then your tongue inserted
• how do you do?
• a mission of mercy
• a career
• human skin covered in mud that's been scraped at
• beer
• barrels of oil
• crisis in the city
• the edge of the country
• I have no nationality
• artificial divisiveness
• incremental sinning
• baring concepts
• formulaic response
• a change in potential you
• can do it
• an ant upon a leaf
• green thoughts in a dining room
• menage a trois
• the Peruvian government
• some hope
• faith and charity
• games and jokes
• a sign of the times
• five o clock shadow
• an eclipse of the sun
• Quaker Meeting House, Brigg Flats
• fourth wall convention, the shape of things to come
• a menu, a recipe, a recipe for disaster
• a frustration that we all share
• the cost of housing
• ball bearings
• Highway Sixty One Revisited
• silver tongue in a wobbly mouth
• a loose tooth
• a false move
• a wooden leg
• a dry lake
• a pinch of salt
• a tuck in time
• Steve Biko
• trespassers ought to be prosecuted
• Sunset over Battersea
• the way down
• Come all ye faithful
• prolong the agony
• an ear of hate
• glass fibre
• practical tuition
• solo gazelles
• fiction and friction in Viennese society in the late 1850s
• positive recrimination
• slower, slower
• don't come yet I'm not ready
• I'm not even dressed
• the mirror is clouded
• looks like rain
• leaves of a rare tree
• fat in the fire
• heart in the mouth
• bowels in a trough
• applause
• make away
• anchors
• cotter pin
• pottery classes
• chinks in the armour
• chinks in the amor
• my love is like a reddened rose
• full speed a head
• can you hear me
• read the bulletin
• don't you touch me
• all I can say is
• all I can say
• what do I care
• I care
• I care no less than you care
• the brink of the abyss
• a bit of moss
• twenty starlings in a bush

Copyright Ó Lawrence Upton, 1992, 1996, 1998

This piece was written September - November 1992, revised February 1994 and read at Sub Voicive that month. It was published by Call this poetry in 1996 and is now out of print.