On constantly mishearing ‘rioting’ as ‘writing’ on the BBC


There has been writing for ten days now
unabated. People are anxious, fed up.
There is writing in Paris, in disaffected suburbs,
but also in small towns, and old ones like Lyon.
The writers have been burning cars; they’ve thrown
homemade Molotov cocktails at policemen.
Contrary to initial reports, the writers
belong to several communities: Algerian
and Caribbean, certainly, but also Romanian,
Polish, and even French. Some are incredibly
young: the youngest is thirteen.
They stand edgily on street-corners, hardly
looking at each other. Long-standing neglect
and an absence of both authority and employment
have led to what are now ten nights of writing.

 

 

 


 

 

 

In my cousin’s mansion in California
my uncle and aunt, tourists
saw it separately.
At first, they didn’t know what it was –
neither basin nor commode
neither bowl nor bathtub
they circled round it anxiously
and silently.
Could it be a drinking-water fountain?

Later, when they knew, they tried
it tentatively; the dwarf-
like jet of water sprang ceilingward
and surprised their secret regions.

 

Apples still come from Kashmir
pale pink in crates in winter’s market.
Each grew through the year till it absorbed
the valley’s sweetness and undertaste
and reached its final shape and weight.
They are not dead, but come to fruition.
When you bite them, not blood,
but the valley’s clear juice floods your mouth.

   

 

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The watchman waves. The garage door
Stutters open. It’s dark inside, dark. Grope for a switch.
‘Where are you going?’ We’re going somewhere not dark,
somewhere clear and sunlit,
where the frank wind touches our faces. The watchman
brushes open the gate by habit.
Leaves—wrinkled, yellow tongues—pastiche
The driveway by habit. When you turn the key, the car
Throbs, and there’s a sharp, bitter aura of petrol.
Then light a cigarette. A point glows
Like an ache for the past. When was I last with you in this
Car,

In this closed space?
Outside, wind and dust glaze the windows. Young, I loved
That smell
Of fuel washing the car-intestine, its suddenness,
Its spontaneous personality.
I grew intimate with its bitter exactness. In every derelict
Service station, or among ruined despondent engines,
Or bleary pools in dumps
With rainbows
In their eyes,
I inspired that fragrance. It was everywhere, it was
A wise spirit, a timeless,
Unromantic, amor mundi spirit,
Haunting the dark cogs and the pistons
Like despair, or love,
Or one of those emotions I wouldn’t experience with clarity
Until long after,
And not even then.