poem || Lawrence Upton

Monitored behaviour

1

Wings make jumpy unintended mechanical noise.

Expectations infill
as a train passes,
pulling on plugs of the natural
defining circumstances.

Members of the library stock take off,
take off each other. And, Hades and gentile heaven,
it's time to shop.

Advertisements follow,
trying to lead;
leads interfering with other leads.
Interference coursing.

And, around the widening city,
there are The Moors



2

Rattle of crumbs upon a plate.
Doors shut into the distances,
amplification confronting surveillance.

On the deck of the liner,
alibis are arranged.

On the banks of the Lynher,
the inhabitants discuss Plymouth
as if it were sophisticated.

Two men deslate their own roof
into the yard below,
welcoming armies
with waving arms

Do not say it is unwelcome --
the treadmill, or the roulette wheel –
it is spinning


3

A hammering next door and music here.
A bending of what is perceived
sieved
and dispersed
and made compliant

mechanism broken

a new mechanism

knocking both sides of a hollow wall

a space of clocks,
melodic,
stand-in rhythms
fall
filling



[River Lynher, sometimes called the Saint German's River, is a tributary of River Tamar. “Lynher” is an anglicisation of the Cornish name.]