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