The people are speaking rather loudly,
as if painting with brushes full of paint,
so that each line floods well beyond itself:
smothering the unoccupied space, it’s all scribble.
Each announcement comes arrogant and squeaky-voiced.
one over another, none of them useful,
few of them making much syntactic sense.
And one could be a man masturbating.
Sirens go off, a managerial muddled yell,
calling to order trouble-makers.
Does it make itself clear? it asks, meaning
Are you going to obey me? demanding respect
with an inappropriate tone and a big bit of panic
like lumpy vomit caught on the back of the throat.
--
Lawrence Upton
AHRC Creative Research Fellow
Dept of Music
Goldsmiths, University of London
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