Paleface
eBook - ePub

Paleface

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Paleface

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About This Book

Shortlisted for the 1996 Forward Prize. Candid and alert to the contemporary scene, the poems inPalefacerender an immediately recognisable world, not least when ostensibly describing the rites and customs of a desert tribe. Many of the poems speak of the ways in which our lives surprise us: intimations of mortality in a Sunday market, unicorns at the zoo, a miracle in West London, redundancy and love. They distil a sense of sometimes painful, sometimes comic displacement that rings true to the facts.

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Yes, you can access Paleface by Charles Boyle in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & European Poetry. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
CB Editions
Year
2015
ISBN
9781909585126
Edition
1
Velcro

Renous, alluding to myself, asked him what he thought of the King of England sending out a collector to their country, to pick up lizards and beetles, and to break stones? The old gentleman thought seriously for some time, and then said. . . ‘I do not like it: if one of us were to go and do such things in England, do you not think the King of England would very soon send us out of the country?’
– Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle


There’s a tribe, I swear it,
in the Syrian desert
who bury their dead standing up.

Every five years, a great sandstorm
rages; diviners interpret
the chattering of skulls.

*

Their warrior queen
models Armani. Their children
are force-fed videos

of the long march
out of Crittenden
to Zit. Their god is named

after the terrifying noise
made by the opening
of a hundred tent-flaps at dawn.

*

The acrid leaves they chew
every waking hour
produce a mild

hallucinatory effect
of the kind experienced
by publishers’ reps

while driving on the M6
north of Carlisle
in light drizzle.

*

Because their topography
lacks high places
they have yet to invent

the ladder. Because
of the premium they place
on originality in art

no two toothbrushes, funeral masks
or wheels
are exactly the same.

*

While their diligent wives
are putting on their faces
the junior elders

assemble in the lobby
to smoke cheroots
and discuss the pros and cons

...

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Monday
  3. The Miracle at Shepherd’s Bush
  4. Wiseman’s Grand Summer Clearance
  5. The Year of the Dog
  6. Criminal Fraternity
  7. Strongbow
  8. March Hares
  9. The Big Idea
  10. Ex
  11. Founders’ Day
  12. Switzerland
  13. Serial
  14. Species
  15. Unicorns
  16. Bedtime
  17. Familiar
  18. A Certain Age
  19. Lissom
  20. Velcro
  21. Tourism
  22. In the Middle Atlas
  23. Dry Goods
  24. 1st Floor, Ladies Fashions
  25. Figurine
  26. Solid Professionals
  27. The Interview
  28. September
  29. The Optometrist
  30. Fast Forward
  31. Dutch, 17th Century
  32. Later the Same Era
  33. New Mains, 1864
  34. White City
  35. Sheds