I have the merest sense of what Primrose Hill is like, or which bridge if
one fled to the river would take one over into Mcmanusland.
Wondered about loosing a posse of bewildered zebra into the conclusion.
Best from Max
On 23/02/11 6:44 PM, "Patrick McManus" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> No Max it was not me who took your wheels! :-)I like that catchers P
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Max Richards
> Sent: 22 February 2011 22:40
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: snap: short black
>
> Short Black
>
> In the Sylvia Plath Café Bookshop
> in London near Primrose Hill
> I ordered like a good Aussie
> a short black
> which got me a funny look.
>
> More than that it was a medical centre
> and animal welfare clinic
> from which a cat,
> sleek long-legged and black
> emerged to pay me special attention
>
> jostling my coffee so it spilled,
> mouthing the book I was sampling
> so its corners suffered tiny rips
> while four paws prodded my sleeve
> and pummelled up my arm
>
> and clawed around my shoulder.
> I spoke to it soothing words:
> is it fiction you object to
> or all books? what medication
> are you on? mild coffee might suit.
>
> From the sleek black issued
> a mingled purring meowing growling
> and the eyes flashed fearsomeness.
> Meanwhile an electrical storm
> passed over and gutters overflowed.
>
> The staff had made themselves scarce
> leaving only handwritten notes stuck
> to shelves: 'We all loved this one'
> 'Better than the movie'
> 'This series gets better and better'.
>
> So they said. I doubted. Where
> was the poetry section? Between Gay
> and Gift Wraps. Neruda, Bukowski,
> Rumi, Gibran, Poems for Funerals.
> Omar Khayyam. The Golden Treasury.
>
> Not even Plath? Oh what they had
> of her was all behind glass,
> with well-known pix, hard to read
> without the superadded gloom
> of Al Alvarez and the rest.
>
> Salacious? I'd been guilty too.
> The cat, retreating to the door
> marked Veterinary Care
> swished a discriminating tail
> and leaped into the vet's chair
>
> preparing to dispense advice
> and pills to the pets of Primrose Hill.
> Beyond the Medical Centre door
> what changes, one wondered, were being
> enacted to the natural order?
>
> Behind the coffee machine
> the barista (blonded hair a la Plath)
> crouched pumping and pouring,
> muttering inaudibly while
> the grinder deafened the whole place.
>
> Out of here. In a cloudburst fissure
> I ran to my bike - chained to a pole
> it had lost both wheels to a passing thief.
> Howling I scuttled downhill flapping
> my arms so the gale sped my flight.
>
> Max Richards
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