Kenny Knight
Kenny Knight has
published three collections of poetry with Shearsman Books. The Honicknowle
Book of the Dead (2009) A Long Weekend on the Sofa (2016) and Love Letter to an
Imaginary Girlfriend (2022) He live in Plymouth, runs CrossCountry Writers and
works in a supermarket cafe. All three poems are from my 2022 collection.
It Was Duck Not
Blackbirds That Did it For Me
It
was ducks not daffodils
or
five pound notes that did it for me
thunderstorms
in the teaching room
and
a mad dash home
along
Coombe Park Lane.
The
streets were dry and I remember
crossing
three roads without looking
but
there weren't so many cars back then
there
were some but not as many
as
there were cats
in
that book by T. S. Eliot
which
I read some years later.
Cats
lived out between the fields,
you
could see their eyes at night
on
the road to Modbury
or
sitting on windowsills,
looking
wise, looking intellectual
like
Egyptian professors.
Cats
working undercover,
infiltrating
our lives
living
rooms and sofas.
Out
of breath
when
I reached our house
I
flung open the back door
looking
for my mother
who
stood alone washing dishes
at
the kitchen sink.
She
smiled and waved a greeting
her
hand a glove of soap bubbles
and
in my eagerness to share
I
slipped and skated over words
as
if they were made of ice
my
mind and my mouth
filled
with images of rain and feathers.
I
had discovered something old and beautiful.
It
was ducks not Dickinson that did it for me.
Forgetting
to wipe my feet
I
stepped into the house
stepped
onto the doormat
as
if it were a stage
a
little bit of Lear might have crossed.
Without
any preamble
I
grabbed a broomstick
making
my debut
on
the Plymouth Poetry scene
to
an audience consisting
of
my mother and the family cat
and
in the applause that didn't follow
I
climbed the stairs to the quiet
of
my room where I looked
out
the window across the Tamar Valley
and
in my imagination
sent
an innocence of crows
flying
north across the sky
to
Woodland Wood
freewheeling
across
the
years yet to come
before
turning west
into
the last of the day's blueness.
It
was ducks not Dylan
raindrops
not rivers that did it for me.
It
was a ripple of poetry on a pond
a
blink of blue eyes
gazing
down into still water.
It
was nonsense verse
and
nursery rhymes
not
Hilda or Ogden Nash
it
was a seed which grew underground
into
a tall and slender bush of marijuana
it
was the year I hit seventeen
the
year I got serious about making
language
out of language
and
sometime after that
I
recall my mother saying
there
was more money
to
be made robbing trains
than
there was writing poetry
for
Faber and Faber
and
she was right
but
I never wanted
to
rob the midnight train to Adlestrop
never
wanted to sell
free
verse on the free market/
It
was ducks not dollars that did it for me.
Reading Paul Celan
For Christina Peters
The
surrealistic diner
at
the other end of the terrace
pours
Christmas pudding
over
her Christmas lunch.
Birds
fly under the roof of the cafe
a
foghorn practices the shipping forecast
a
child leaps out of the bushes of memory
seashells
pinned to his ears.
For
entertainment we listen
to
the theme tune from Harry Potter
look
out to sea
as
the sun shines a yellow eye
over
the distant shoreline
of
Friday afternoon.
We
have expensive taste in poetry
we
dunk teabags into teapots
reading
to each other and the hecklers
of
the sky in German and English.
Lottie
lays at your feet
a
black and white rug under the table
doesn't
interrupt the conversation
doesn't
bark or tut
in
German or English
when
a fight breaks out
at
the other end of the terrace
in
the middle of reading Paul Celan.
The
sky let's go of its grief
a soft rain falls
on
Lottie's black and white coat
falls
on handbags and teddy bears
as
the passengers
of
a pram parked nearby
skip
the formalities of bell ringing
launch
into each other with gusto
knocking
seven bells of featherweights
out
of Harry Carpenter's punch bag
kicking
salt and pepper pots
kicking
sugar cubes across the floor
juggling
spoons in the air
that
fall through the air
words
that shoot out of bodies
ricochet
off tables and chairs
a
little bit of off-screen drama
a
brief interlude on Friday afternoon
somewhere
between Tinside Pool
and
a tin of Winalot in Christina's kitchen.
The
day ages by the minute
by
midnight it'll be
the
mother of tomorrow
the
clocks will go into labour
the
prams will have moved off
with
their wheels and bruises
the
gift of peace
and
quiet will return
and
we'll turn the page
read
some more Paul Celan
take
brown and blue photographs
of
autumn leave falling
from
the lighthouses of the sky
onto
the dark landscape
and
desecrated heart of the city.
After
a couple of rounds
the
sugar cubists depart
leaving
us alone with Paul Celan
and
the surrealist diner
finishing
her Christmas starter
and
dessert in a photo finish
that
no-one takes.
In
another time and place
under
the family tree
of
a distant autumn
in
a heart held together
by
sugar cubes and loss
I
imagine myself
out
on the streets of a city,
a
city much like this
which
is a gateway
to
somewhere else
a
city which Louis Aragon
and
Maurice Chevalier passed through
some
years after Houdini
escaped
the river's grip
a
city which gave the world
A
Curious Shipwreck
the
Speedwell and the Beagle
seadog
of evolution and Devils Point
overlooking
the sea, overlooking yesterday.
Sixty
feet above the shoreline
to
the east of Darwin's great landmark
we
practice the art of multi-tasking
translating
surrealism into English
drinking
tea and coffee
under
the shadow of Smeaton's Tower
under
the pedals of a big wheel
from
some giant bicycle we'll never ride.
Skirting
the cold corpse of Christmas lunch
Lottie
passes through the lunchtime crowd
like
a ghost through butter
the
sea moves towards us as if we were
the
adopted children of King Canute
engaged
in a futile rebellion of deckchairs
outclassed
by the moon and the tide
cast
as castaways in a parallel
Paul
Celan movie someone else is making
making
sandcastles out of nothing
out
of narrative, out of language.
On
Reaching A Hundred
1
I
don't remember
the
Hundred Years War
and
neither does the goldfish
but
I do remember the night
we
met on that Viking cruise.
It
was love at a hundred yards.
It
was leaf year
the
year we vanished undercover
in
a bed of magic
the
year we made coffee
as
much as possible
and
not forgetting
those
long lunches
we
had in Tintagel
around
that oddly shaped table
and
that waitress at Guinevere's
who'd
never heard of Maurice Chevalier.
2
This
old bruise of romance
is
my heart
blackened
by your departure.
Send
me a microphone
and
a very long lead.
I've
got so much to say.
I
need someone to talk too.
How
about meeting next week
under
some constellation
that's
ruled by a fish or a goat.
Venus
will be in conjunction
with
something or other
which'll
make for good conversation.
Let's
talk about make-believe.
Let's
dropout from the egg and spoon race.
Go
somewhere imaginary or stay at home
playing
The Psychedelic Sheep of the Family.
Is
your favourite progressive rock band
Paradox
Lost or Marshmellow Milton.
Do
you play the field or the triangle.
Have
you ever lived in Hundred House.
Would
you like to fall in love
with
my telephone number.
3
I
may not be a millionaire
by
this time tomorrow
but
I'd like to say
to
the money spider
crawling
across this poem
that
my family tree
has
roots in many languages.
Two
of those trees
are
the silver birch
and
the monkey puzzle.
The
silver birch
is
snug and inviting.
The
monkey puzzle
is
a chatterbox and a flirt
and
I'd like to say
standing
out here on the breakfast aisle
that
I never wanted to be
a
part-time supermarket worker
selling
corn flakes to the masses
all
I ever wanted to do
was
make narratives out of fragments
make
sure I've got my reading glasses on
when
I put a cross in that box.
I'd
like to say after all these years
I've
still got a crush on the waitress
feeding
egg boxes into the cardboard bailer.
And
I'd like to say
on
reaching a hundred
that
I used to have a thing for older women
and
I'd like to add
that
promises will be made
and
promises will be broken
and
I'd like to propose
on
one knee or another
if
we make it back from sleep
now
November's here
after
burning that telegram
and
blowing out those candles
I'm
in favour of the future
in
favour of splashing out
on
a small house
in
the wilds of suburbia
a
small house in a neighbourhood
of
overgrown lawns
and
I'd like to say
free
speech and free verse is everywhere
but
it won't buy you a ladder
to
lean against a tree
won't
buy you a lawn mower
or
a short cut of loneliness.
take
it from last night's lipstick
the
13th Floor Elevators
aren't
likely to be getting
anything
psychedelic
from
Santa Claus this Christmas.
Take
it from the Four Marys
blueberries
taste nice
so
does instant coffee
and
clotted cream
especially
at the tip
of
a silver spoon
and
I'd like to say
in
regards and sometimes regret
to
yesterday wherever it may be
that
the heart is a lonely place
prone
to tears and sorrow
which
needs to be filled
with
sunflowers and poppies
and
generations of children
the
family home of the monkey puzzle
the
family at the heart of the silver birch
the
allotments of the sun
and
the rain and the wind
the
seeds and the roots of magic
the
need to grow more trees
the
need to fill more dance halls
and
nightclubs with peace and quiet
and
hundreds of weekend romances
dancing
ghost-like in the nicotine dark.
All three poems were previously published in magazines. It Was Ducks Not Blackbirds was published in Shearsman Magazine. Reading Paul Celan was published online at Litter and On Reaching A Hundred was published in The Long Poem Magazine
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