Killing joke
In the sun the thunderbox of a car speaker hits all the wrong notes.
Well actually there were no notes to hit when you think about it.
And coming down to the breakwater edge the light plopped over
the waves. And even plop is all wrong.
The man was sloppy who was lying on the grass verge. And I was
annoyed that he was in the way. Other than that the day had started
out pretty ok. I was sitting in the car reading simon’s selected poems
from the Killing Time sequence and I was remembering how I used
to like quite a bit Killing Joke. And you know how you stop on one
line and have to re read it because something reminds you of something
else and so I begin remembering the tartan skirt I wore and the boots
and how my grandmother called me a slot when she meant slut when
I took off my hair. And so on.
Then returning back to simon I mixed up the line Time thickens for
Time chickens. Naturally – when you start doing this to someone
else’s poem you should quit & leave well alone the book.
And involving myself with the orange cover and the 2 slopey ffs for faber
it turns out the man annoying me all along was dead.
SONJA YELICH’s first collection, Clung, published by Auckland University Press, won the 2005 Best First Book in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. She lives
In Auckland with her partner and their 4 children.
Links:
