Poem
Clare Pollard
THE CITY-DWELLER’S LAMENT
THE CITY-DWELLER’S LAMENT
THE CITY-DWELLER’S LAMENT
Baby screams twist through the block of flats,then shattering sounds, domestic rows,
TVs saying: lines are open now.
The grey roads swill with rain,
and advertising hoardings turn,
then turn again,
as pizza heats through in my oven.
Something wild calls in me, but no thing calls back.
Can’t stop these stupid, manic fantasies
of deep and pathless forests —
dells awash with bluebells, needles,
rabbit-flesh and pear-flesh;
bats cover the face of the moon
like carnival masks…
But I am spoiled.
What would I have me do?
Trill to birds like some Disney Snow White?
Forage like some broadsheet tourist?
Imagine the cold — no fridges, no taps.
I’d bore myself, kill myself; can’t even strike a match.
I’d end in constellations of maggots.
But still, where is our succour?
The park I must avoid after dark is not enough,
the basil pot in its wrapper is not enough,
the organic cheese is not enough,
the raggedy fox is not enough,
the limping pigeon is not enough,
the sunflowers in Sainsburys are not enough.
© 2008, Clare Pollard
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Clare Pollard
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1978)
Clare Pollard grew up in Bolton and later read English at Cambridge University. She now lives in London where she teaches poetry at the City Lit. She has published three collections of poetry with Bloodaxe: The Heavy Petting Zoo (1998), Bedtime (2002) and Look, Clare, Look! (2005). The first of these was largely written while she was still at school and she was subsequently chosen by the Poetry...
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Poems of Clare Pollard
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THE CITY-DWELLER’S LAMENT
Baby screams twist through the block of flats,then shattering sounds, domestic rows,
TVs saying: lines are open now.
The grey roads swill with rain,
and advertising hoardings turn,
then turn again,
as pizza heats through in my oven.
Something wild calls in me, but no thing calls back.
Can’t stop these stupid, manic fantasies
of deep and pathless forests —
dells awash with bluebells, needles,
rabbit-flesh and pear-flesh;
bats cover the face of the moon
like carnival masks…
But I am spoiled.
What would I have me do?
Trill to birds like some Disney Snow White?
Forage like some broadsheet tourist?
Imagine the cold — no fridges, no taps.
I’d bore myself, kill myself; can’t even strike a match.
I’d end in constellations of maggots.
But still, where is our succour?
The park I must avoid after dark is not enough,
the basil pot in its wrapper is not enough,
the organic cheese is not enough,
the raggedy fox is not enough,
the limping pigeon is not enough,
the sunflowers in Sainsburys are not enough.
THE CITY-DWELLER’S LAMENT
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