Issue 18: Drew Milne
(Tom Raworth Memorial)

BIG DATA HOLIDAYS

shared veg count

for the weekend

mayday half song

half spreadsheet

the scarf of night

for a fascinator

not just not known

nor shedloads

firmly in for dirt

a mark up fantastic

sung for a killing

this and that win

for umbrella larks

metal trim buggies

a firmware insect

doing the music

planned obsolescence

yeah yeah night after

bunting in the sky

with a data miner

a thing the beast

that made the lie

no you didn’t really

so say all of the

flags in the high street

the reference hail

custard to rust bowl

is there any camera

a goosed microphone

the unyielding cough

caught in pop shields

an archive for us

and all our relations

come on over and

take the weight off

man to mansplainer

keeping it ever so

and not for plaster

or crinkling runners

it can be a plumage

a recreation ground

our lime pickle and

hedge fund supreme

spreading its bets

did debt say human

the face of nineteen

flaked for adverts

lichens runneth over

pump up the ochre

and cobalt scandal

giving purple fruits

the cause turns out

a sausage macabre

Linda McCartney’s

left in the freezer

jobs for the moon

scarce as trademarks

at the conventional

spartan congress

run for your ferry

evasion isn’t only

the ruble / rubble

delete to taste

taming poster tosh

in sundry expenses

and for a hiding

austerity lite there

be touch papers

the market clone

up up and spiral

jetty swatch arrays

yes it can be the

the thing of beauty

pillars of community

all the reconciling

sub-prime tendency

in human resources

the mantra covets

the honey sting do

to petal chandelier

a hop in the offing

some make and be

yikes is the order

come unstuck quite

as the murder rates

take up the policy

and the primate

is going nuclear

Drew Milne is the Judith E Wilson Lecturer in Drama & Poetry, University of Cambridge. His collected poems, entitled In Darkest Capital is forthcoming from Carcanet in 2017.

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