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.

first published in The Observer

 

 

 


 

 

 

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.

from St Cyril Road and other poems
   

 

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

vvvvvvvin this closed space?
Outside, wind and dust glaze the windows. Young, I loved
vvvvthat smell
vvvvvof fuel washing the car-intestine, its suddenness,
vvvvvvvits spontaneous personality.
I grew intimate with its bitter exactness. In every derelict
vvvvvservice station, or among ruined despondent engines,
vvvvvvvor bleary pools in dumps
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvwith rainbows
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvin their eyes,
I inspired that fragrance. It was everywhere, it was

vvvvvvva wise spirit, a timeless,
vvvvvvvunromantic, amor mundi spirit,
vvvvvvvhaunting the dark cogs and the pistons
vvvvvvvlike despair, or love,
or one of those emotions I wouldn’t experience with clarity
vvvvvvvuntil long after,
vvvvvvvand not even then.

from St Cyril Road and other poems

   

 

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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.

from St Cyril Road and other poems