Day Tripping

This is the poem that opens the 'Camper Van Blues' sequence in my new collection. It is amongst my personal favourites in the book, and sets the intended tone of the collection perfectly, which is by turns one of nihilism, vatic utterance, emotional restlessness, and irony.

Frustratingly, I can't do the HTML effectively enough to manage the indents, but many of these lines do indent, and that really makes a difference to the poem's dynamics and fluidity on the page. I'm afraid you'll have to buy the book from Salt - next month? - in order to see how it's supposed to be presented. Meanwhile, this is the basic text.

Since I was unable to place it in any of the magazines I sent it to, this is Day Tripping's first outing in public. It was a disappointment to me that nobody wanted to publish it - though I agree it's not a great poem - but at least I can give it some respect on Raw Light, if nowhere else.

Day Tripping

Wasted again, I’m slumped
over a fold-up table
in a battered charabanc
by a Stygian river
listening to nothing.

Slumped on both elbows
in whiskeyed vestments,
hair lank with the addict’s
unwashed sheen:
three months now
unable to pray, or pay rent
or put pen to paper.

Slumped, unseen
behind the stained blind
of a flyscreen
I listen to the wind-shear song
of nothing
the thin translucent whine
of nothing
until my bones begin to smoke
my eyeballs roll up white
and sing.