Bob Dylan Plays Down in the Port
(Genoa 1992)
We were almost at the end of the world
on the uppermost floor
in earshot of the world’s ghostliest ships.
The baby was asleep in his cot.
Darling, your breasts were my nest.
Just to twitch was to feel
a cascade of sweat down our necks.
We’d heard they’d flown in
a god who’d died to be revived.
Heat made porridge of us.
You blinked when that growl
drifted from the port
and bade us sleep.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
An Itch in the City
A purple slipper lies in the street:
an itch in the city, a bishop in flight.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Drowned City
(November 2002)
What struck me most
about the
drowned city
was the way in which
a whole generation
of umbrellas
was wiped out.
Some were shoved
cruelly into litter boxes.
But many just drifted
around like tramps,
zombies, barboni
giving us the questionable benefit
of their death-rattle.
The unequivocally dead
lay on broken backs,
their thin bones
showing signs
of torture.
•
Julian Stannard teaches creative writing at the University of
Winchester and has published two collections with Peterloo Poets.
