Issue 12: Angus Sinclair
from Sonnets for Billy Barrix
Billy Barrix strides into the baking
south on Wednesday to find Gandhi inside
an ATM machine & a headache
which feels like hibiscus or fresh cut fruit
It is going like a cloud of creamer
black coffee on the rooftop beach terrace
All your choice wish Barrix your name engraved
on grain of rice cocktails after curfew
or for example a hundred year-old
turtle explodes against the sea defence
a ring of kids around his bloody face
suddenly circles seem significant
It’s hard to make the sea mean anything
so after two nights I always skip towns
the gleaming roadside shrines the gentle lake
in this light like solid gold and elsewhere
I am here I watch the ferryboat bob
like a ribcage rising softly falling
Mama it is going like sandalwood
aerosols like cakes of rose toilet soap
and the sun sets every single day
Sir what you look I have seen you before
trying to make a mistake on the beach
Billy Barrix wonders what his feeling
the beach is a Beach is a masala
omelette with a view looking is for free
crows fuss around the air like black plastic
sacks in a gale the sea hushes itself
slept in luggage rack on the sleepy train
morning develops Put a ten in place
of five mutate and burst through yesterday's
yellow curtain at the Ashby Hotel
all day the hallway men shout in slapstick
dial #9 for salt-lime soda scotch in wax-
paper cups lunch is simple as hushed brown
potatoes or Handicapped Credit Card
Reservations I’ll be by the bar snacks
eavesdropping in English in the silence
of middle-aged couples stare at Barrix
so here’s hoping here as in place will fold
as imperceptibly into a now
as in purpose as in cocktail napkins
beginning again the classic tracking-
shot qualities of dusk &c.
wheat-field workers watch the sleeper roll through
has entered and left Barrix in silence
It is going like lotus flower cups
of country liquor they take like lyrics
paani bottle bonfire block-print bazaar
a field full of hard work is beautiful
Knowledge Updation is Power of Strength
because actually I am taking
collectables & gods and your good name
if it looks abandoned then probably
it isn’t no photographs of sunsets
no flashes inside the inner sanctum
water wets Barrix & the Honeybee
softens the heart a little scavenger
hunt redrafting his accumulations
Mama it is going it is going
not-towards the sun I find is ringing
like a bell is a little yellow tear
on a gin-blue river but not at all
yogic Steps especially which include
breath control help I find I am a trace
of myself like a word like a silver-
plastic elephant for good beginnings
and still Barrix wonders what his feeling
separate from his voice the sound that drowns
all choices is the noise of the market
Angus Sinclair's poetry has recently appeared in Ambit, clinic online, and the anthology Dear World and Everyone in it: New Poetry in the UK
