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Midnight in the City of ClocksTobias Hill
New Verses for Clock City Magpies
Eight for black, nine for white. Ten for a step and its echo at night. Eleven for credit, twelve for cash. Thirteen for pickpockets milling the crush. Fourteen for blackmail, fifteen for tax. Sixteen for passion in cul-de-sacs. Seventeen steps from the porch to the car. Eighteen for life, with good behaviour. Nineteen pounds ninety-nine pence-ful of lager. Twenty plus tips for a blow and a popper. Twenty-one faces pressed flat to the window. Twenty-two magpies half-lost in shadow. One for white, two for black. Three chances left to guess why they attack.
This lively second collection from a young, much-travelled writer falls into two parts. 'Transit' includes poems of travel and transport, especially Japan, where Tobias Hill lived for two years. 'Back to the City' is about London, from hangover to Underground; Hiroshima; and the 'City of Clocks', a fusion of cities and ages.
They are poems crammed with a young man's curiosity and eye for detail, and show his great ability for storytelling.
Table of Contents
I TRANSIT The City of Clocks Transit Prisons in a Departure Lounge at Midnight One Day in Hiroshima from A YEAR IN JAPAN May August October Homesickness Playing Japanese Chess with the Elder Mrs Uchida Sumo Wrestler in Sushi Bar Earthquake, Osaka Green Tea Cooling The Barber's Daughter Waiting The Secret of Burning Diamonds Rio in Carnival Jael Three Wishes in a Small Town The Mule and the Rain How to Light Dynamite Flora and the Admiral II BACK TO THE CITY London Pastoral New Verses for Clock City Magpies North-West London Love Song Broken Bone Playground at 2 am Sheep's Clothing Xenophobia The Woman who talks to Ezra Pound in Tesco Life Savings Today the House is Full of Dishcloths Reasons Why Meat July 14th, 10 pm The Beekeepers Midnight in the City of Clocks |
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