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I never discuss Allocation of Tonnage or movements of ships outside this room. I trace the perfected migrations of swifts, flight patterns of lapwing, scan winter skies for starlings, wait for the rolling thrum of their sideslip over ministry buildings. I follow dancing parties of goldfinches on frivolous excursions. and the larks sing so melodious, sing so melodious I do not entirely trust the Civil Service. Shortages of bacon and milk may have caused a curious habit newly observed in bluetits – papers shredded, notices ripped. Bombing, favourable effects of, I slot into the card index, between Birmingham and Bradford. Starlings are roosting now among the anti-aircraft guns. and the larks sing so melodious at the break of the day I write The disappearance of the human race from these islands would perhaps most inconvenience the lesser whitethroat. A blackbird clamours brazen, jubilant, jubilant, fireweed and cinders, a shattered hedge. I shall persist in calling the song thrush a throstle. Amateur magician Learn these tricks for an amusement, but do not carry them into your everyday life. – J. Theobald, The Amateur Magician I studied how to cut the Princess of Thebes into nine pieces and pluck the Lady of Karnac to hover at my fingertips over a pit of flames. They’d have danced back every time, those flexuous girls, to catch the paper bouquets I’d whisk from my gloves. 6 New Poetries VI
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And then, Swallowing the Needle, the Knife through the Heart – the trick is to leave no visible traces. Palm up palm down here’s a coin in your ear, here’s your purse in my hand before you knew it had gone. Your ear-ring? Watch me cut open this apple. What followed came easy: the Riffle Shuffle, the Faro Shuffle, the snap and fan of Lost Queens descending a staircase again, again, all the false cuts, false dealing, the Criss Cross, the Switch. I mastered the Ambitious Card; fumbled the Finger Break. It would always be Double or Nothing. And look, there’s nothing between my hands, nothing up my sleeves – only a length of silk ribbon I’ll walk through, without a cut or a knot. It’s Expansion of Texture, that trick that makes nothing appear. It’s my gift. I’ve left you my Vanishing Card. The alchemy of circumstance and chemistry in five photographs Tacita Dean’s Blind Pan [Exile, no sun] This is a photograph of twenty years. There are no people in it, and no shadows. He carries this famine on his back; he carries his country in his mouth and it has no word in it for home, no proverb of forgetting. [Antigone leading, dark clouds] Walking under rain. Who was your father? Gunfire in villages, dogs at the gates. What does her voice look like? Like the weight of her coat. Like bread. Like Take my hand, walk in my footsteps. No. Who was your father? Like rain. Judith Willson 7

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I never discuss Allocation of Tonnage or movements of ships outside this room. I trace the perfected migrations of swifts, flight patterns of lapwing, scan winter skies for starlings, wait for the rolling thrum of their sideslip over ministry buildings. I follow dancing parties of goldfinches on frivolous excursions.

and the larks sing so melodious, sing so melodious

I do not entirely trust the Civil Service. Shortages of bacon and milk may have caused a curious habit newly observed in bluetits – papers shredded, notices ripped. Bombing, favourable effects of, I slot into the card index, between Birmingham and Bradford. Starlings are roosting now among the anti-aircraft guns.

and the larks sing so melodious at the break of the day

I write The disappearance of the human race from these islands would perhaps most inconvenience the lesser whitethroat. A blackbird clamours brazen, jubilant, jubilant, fireweed and cinders, a shattered hedge. I shall persist in calling the song thrush a throstle.

Amateur magician

Learn these tricks for an amusement, but do not carry them into your everyday life.

– J. Theobald, The Amateur Magician

I studied how to cut the Princess of Thebes into nine pieces and pluck the Lady of Karnac to hover at my fingertips over a pit of flames. They’d have danced back every time, those flexuous girls, to catch the paper bouquets I’d whisk from my gloves.

6 New Poetries VI

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