Top Dogs
1.
@ Valerio Catullo
my loving Lesbia awaits me airside
in her leather jacket & little black dress
she has collected her John Lewis airmiles
the sparrow forgotten for new forms of flight
to hear her speak of regions, deeds & peoples
would make you wish yourself, my friend, all ear
but each of us has his assigned delusion
we see not what’s in the rucksack on our back
now nothing avails her to hide her affairs
kisses with kisses of so great a number
the thing is ridiculous & too funny
I can’t stop loving her whatever she does
she carries my heart lightly in her hand &
with her fingertips rips up my boarding pass
2.
my transport zapped with a lightning bolt
the charged air the importunate cloud
the circuit of opposed polarities
creates this flash and flicker of the lights
at such a time the thought in readiness
withstands the storm-cells’ violent turbulence
fuel tanks thick enough to prevent burn-through
with joints & fasteners to resist sparks
the radome fitted with diverter-strips
access doors filler caps vents & fuel lines
no power surge overwhelms the system
induces transients into the wires
it attaches itself to the wing-tip
it traces the aluminium skin
3.
Piazza dei Signori
I think Beatrice has stood me up again
blame the juice blame the hip-hop beat
blame the bells of the Torre dei Lamberti
never doubt my faith nor my mournful steadfastness
the sentence of death set upon my exiled head
the ladder that offered access to paradise
the statue erected at mid night in the square
these possible futures evaded or fulfilled
the sick man changes his posture to ease his pain
may misfortune befall all those who serve tyrants
my lines are free why should all end at Ravenna
a new life beckons the new world calls
come hangmen come vultures tomorrow I’ll write
my liturgy of love in the Chelsea Hotel
4.
Via Cappello
this is the house in which she never lived
the balcony she never stood upon
her body never buried in her grave
my Juliet dies & lives for ever
to love is to accept the lover’s death
the burden of potential mourning
my lovers each survive the other’s death
my lovers mourned the loss of the beloved
her breast polished bright by the touch of hands
her form obscured in a million selfies
my Juliet gives her name to all
a range of products & the dreams of youth
5.
George & the princess
tinfoil armour & lapis blue sky
plaster bosses & a tarry black ground
the polysemic texture scatters meaning
gathers up the work as play & practice
representation turned back upon itself
loops & detours through this ancient city
past archways clocktowers merchants’ houses
overlaps the recorded & the live
the sadness of imminent departure
one foot in the stirrup her face in profile
a thousand-yard stare towards the viewer
one hundred things to do before you die.
Robert Hampson is a poet, critic and academic. His most recent poetry publications include an explanation of colours (Veer, 2010), reworked disasters (knives, forks & spoons, 2013), and sonnets 4 sophie (pushtika, 2015). He co-edited (with Ken Edwards) Clasp: late-modernist poetry in London in the 1970s (Shearsman, 2016), a collective autobiography. He was Professor of Modern Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, for many years and taught on the Poetic Practice pathway of the RHUL MA in Creative Writing.
