Poem
Jacob Polley
THE WEASEL
THE WEASEL
THE WEASEL
That’s the way the money goes . . . Trad.Up and down the London Road
blinder by the hour
I spent as much
again as we owed
white winter flowers
Crowds and crowds like fallen leaves
blown between the towers
you came in
with the cold up your sleeves
white winter flowers
Screams and shouts and broken things
now you’re fired and cower
under the sheets
when the postman brings
white winter flowers
Who’d have dreamt a little twist
could turn your sweet breath sour
I tasted this
when we first kissed
white winter flowers
For your whole heart is half my heart
my heart is half of yours
so we’re neither complete
and lie drunk in the street
white winter flowers
© 2012, Jacob Polley. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge and White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN
From: The Havocs
Publisher: Picador, London
From: The Havocs
Publisher: Picador, London
Jacob Polley
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1975)
‘The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible’. This quote from Oscar Wilde, one of Jacob Polley’s favourites, almost seems like a manifesto for this poet of unstable nature, slippery observation, borders and smoke. In spare, musical, muscular language, Polley’s three collections explore what Heidegger called ‘the thingness of things’. His poetry is firmly contemporary, but a...
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Poems of Jacob Polley
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THE WEASEL
That’s the way the money goes . . . Trad.Up and down the London Road
blinder by the hour
I spent as much
again as we owed
white winter flowers
Crowds and crowds like fallen leaves
blown between the towers
you came in
with the cold up your sleeves
white winter flowers
Screams and shouts and broken things
now you’re fired and cower
under the sheets
when the postman brings
white winter flowers
Who’d have dreamt a little twist
could turn your sweet breath sour
I tasted this
when we first kissed
white winter flowers
For your whole heart is half my heart
my heart is half of yours
so we’re neither complete
and lie drunk in the street
white winter flowers
From: The Havocs
THE WEASEL
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