Lunch Poems

Sheffield is not Manhattan.  Except one Saturday each month.

“Often this poet, strolling through the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon, has paused at a sample Olivetti to type up thirty or forty lines of ruminations, or pondering more deeply has withdrawn to a darkened ware- or firehouse to limn his computed misunderstandings of the eternal questions of life, co-existence and depth, while never forgetting to eat Lunch his favorite meal. . .”

– Frank O’Hara wrote this for the cover of his 1964 City Lights collection, Lunch Poems.

We’d very much like to feature your poems started on Writing Days in the morning session.

Send in examples, including a first draft if possible, however scrawly. We can scan them in.  Or send a photograph of your notebook.

Let us know particularly if they were written up over the lunch break, and discussed in the afternoon workshop – and if they’ve since been published or won prizes. Though all they really need is to have been written at a Writing Day.

 

Nina Boyd, 'The Cecil Rhodes Museum'

 

THE CECIL RHODES MUSEUM, BISHOP'S STORTFORD

Empire’s last children, we crocodiled from school
to the square mansion, monstrously white
under a weak British sun. There were maps inside
with buttons to push that lit up the bits of Africa
that were ours. And dull brown photographs
of the people we’d enslaved so we could rob them
of their diamonds and farm their fertile land:
blank-faced men supporting their wasted bodies
with staves and Bibles. And a portrait of our hero,
oil-painted in a cream linen suit,
opulent moustaches over a mean mouth;
a man who knew how to enrich himself and us;
and we were to esteem him, keep our doubts to ourselves.

 

 

Andrew Wilson, 'Brid'

 

BRID

The moon rising
over the sea
the tide out, a fizzling line
in the darkness
looks much bigger than you
remember.
And looking at it straighten
through all the mucky stuff
in the earth’s atmosphere
it looks red
not the tooth yellow and bone
white it gets
higher up, overhead.

 

 

Nina Boyd, 'My Uncle's Dressing-Gown'

First draft (Writing Day, November 14th):

My uncle’s dressing-gown was like a camel’s hide,
bald patches and a smell of sweat and the desert,
tied at what would have been his waist with
a multi-coloured tasseled silk cord.
It was a Sunday morning dressing-gown,
spattered with fat from the breakfasts he cooked,
flooding the kitchen with smoke and sizzle,
singing numbers from The Desert Song, turning bacon,
cracking eggs to fry shell and all.
When my uncle died his wife burned the dressing-gown
in the garden. It went up in a blue flame, smelling
of sausages, fried bread, charred tomatoes.

 

Final draft (November 16th):

MY UNCLE'S DRESSING-GOWN

My uncle’s dressing-gown was like a camel’s hide,
bald patches, a smell of sweat and the desert,
a multi-coloured silk cord weighted with rich tassels
tied at what would have been his waist.
It was a Sunday morning dressing-gown, 
spattered with fat from the breakfasts he cooked.  
He flooded the kitchen with smoke and sizzle, 
sang numbers from The Desert Song, flipped bacon, 
cracked eggs to fry shell and all.  When he died 
my aunt burned the dressing-gown on a bonfire.  
It went up in a blue flame, smelling
of sausages, fried bread, charred tomatoes.

 

 

Cora Greenhill, 'Portrait of an Old Man'

First draft:

Trance-like, her hand begins to move,
shading the hollows hung between the bones
pressing the charcoal in
to slopes of skin
bare shapes with blanks between.

Here now, a pen works quickly
spider lines, a crackle glaze
brings life and lines
to life, and ink twinkles
in eyes mazed
in laughter

 

Final draft:

Entranced, she allows a hand to move
a broad pastel, shading the hollows
hung between bones, pressing
charcoal into slopes of skin,
bare shapes with blanks
between.

Here now, a pen works fast
spidery lines, a crackle
glaze of life, and ink
twinkles in eyes
mazed by
laughter.

 

Lesley Perrins, 'Cleaner'

First draft:

Final draft:

When finally the door slammed behind him,
the curtains blew out their cheeks,
plates in the sideboard chattered and fell quiet.
Then the house turned its face to me and I bathed it,
sponging the rash of brown ale on the carpet,
abrading the tabasco scabs along the sofa arm.

One day soon, I'll go in deep, taking the rug-doctor
to the arterial route between the fridge and the TV,
treat the jaundice on the bedroom ceiling,
now there's no tobacco smoke to reinfect.
There were always three of us in this marriage,
and everyone knows what comes of that;

him I tracked by his droppings, his scent-marks,
the disturbance of places where he'd lain; even now
at early light, I'll wake and think I catch
a glimpse of something on the pillow.....
the house was my soul-mate, repaid care,
we shared the easing of our joints at close of day.

In time, my eyes were opened on a wider world;
I began to feel the pain of public spaces,
to empathise with waiting rooms, embrace
the buildings no one owns; through contract work
I learned to touch them, revive their tired aspect,
provide them intimate services without shame.

I've acquired a forensic eye for the strata
of handprints all down a door's edge, the evidence
of a light-switch repeatedly fingered;
this wall-length bruise was perpetrated
by those chairs, ramming with their guileless backs;
even their seats are caught up in the cycle of abuse;

what hand has picked and picked their weft from warp,
until their cushions must extrude their guts? what shoe
has got itself under the table's veneer, made it look cheap,
then cleaned its sole fastidiously along the skirting?
Who was it walked away and left
the memory of fag-ends tattooed on blond wood?

I do the best with the funds at my disposal,
but sometimes it all becomes too much.
I get to wondering if there's anybody out there,
the landlord, or perhaps an architect;
it would be good if he should choose to call,
then someone might be made to pay.