Issue 7: Tom Jenks
from Streak Artefacts
34.
whilst interrogating the online system leakage in the UHT
once again destroyed by public transport [ this is not your Clitheroe
a half hour in the catacombs vending machines {hot tar} {boiling oil}
I am old and worn and must refuse although I know / your birthday yes
yes for the team you should pickled walnuts dried cranberries
you soaked them overnight in apple juice you sod
once she brought us cigars and kippers in bespoke silver boxes
back when we were a small organisation [ black flag on the water cooler
drank chicory on empty nights shared the collapsible telescope
green stars around the obelisk gleaming tarmac of the mausoleum
35.
at the sorting office [ look Hieronymus I am like that
in portraits a fat Ray Reardon [ on the fringes of Blackburn
back when I was Kentucky Fried Chicken
at the drive thru I encountered little resistance
at the naming ceremony a gallon of Vimto
I have not lived there now for a number of years
but my carpet slippers are still in the secret compartment
at night the hatches [ # stinging silver rain
a bird drawn six centimetres from the margin : ><
there is no place for beauty but I like that hosepipe
36.
I am jealous of his left hand / facility with acorns
at the deer park how he coaxed them from silver
fallow nuzzling curve of his shoulder [ chocolate coated cranberries
Maurice, in the coal shed I am sure of your powers
but in the mall unresponsive [ seagull dead in shopping basket
a warlock : at self service checkout a parliament of owls
here I will build a palace for these omens
a laboratory when I will invent the foot pump
rice cakes anchovies billowing tapestries : a comet [!]
I have given up butter for an ermine pashmina
37.
coy mistress thou thee beside me in food decision opportunities
six pine cones in a plastic bag / after hours a poultice ()
this draws the shard : this tapenade ground on marbled stones
in the minibar a jellied eel pickled nuts of wildebeest
an antique remedy : as sandwich paste for miasma ague
I choose to spend my sins and feel no guilt
at the forest rangers look out post whilst smothering a chicken
I thought of her robe in a clement garden
a washing line sang in a postal district
a man could lose himself amongst such onions
Tom Jenks has two books published (A Priori and *) with if p then q. He administers the avant-objects inprint zimZalla, and co-organises The Other Room reading series in Manchester.
