Cliff Yates: Selected Poems

Cliff Yates

• Publisher: Smith|Doorstop Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781910367179
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

Poets like Cliff Yates only come along every so often, like eclipses or rare migrating birds, and, like an eclipse or a rare migrating bird, Cliff Yates should be gazed at, parked near, and written about. People often talk about poets being fresh, and they mean fresh like bread, likely to go stale. Cliff Yates is fresh like the very first crack of dawn is fresh: unique unrepeatable, full of promise.' — Ian McMillan

from Frank Freeman’s Dancing School

Lighthouse

The lighthouse flickers at the end of the pier.

We watch it in our red pyjamas.

Actually neither of us are wearing red pyjamas.

You’re wearing my blue shirt.

The lighthouse flickers at the end of the pier.

It’s the only thing we can be sure of.

Everything’s uncertain

since you set alight my record collection.

I’m trying to work out an appropriate reaction,

rearranging things in my head to eliminate

all memory of the record collection.

The lighthouse flickers on and off.

Actually it doesn’t, you point out, it just appears to.

You look amazing in my blue shirt.

I haven’t words to describe how good you look

in the light from the lighthouse. Now you’re here

now you’re not. Maybe I should burn

something of yours, you suggest.

Your voice leaves me in the dark.

It doesn’t sound like you when I can’t see you.

Locked In

If there was a skylight I could see the stars

if there were no clouds.

If there was a window I’d smash it.

Hopeless. Switch the lights back on,

kick aside the cushions, spend ten minutes

with Colin’s darts and the Lock Up Your Daughters poster.

Don’t touch Derek’s computer. The fridge hums

then stops. Prop the door open for company

and have an inconclusive game of football

with Celia’s inflatable globe

then break into Margaret’s locker with a biro,

find the tea money in the Coffee Mate tin,

count it twice, put it back

and write out a new washing-up rota

for the next six months in her handwriting

leaving myself out. Play with the idea

of the fire extinguisher. At 5am,

feet up on the table,

close my eyes, wait for the caretaker.

Thank You for the Postcard I Read it

A bat in the bedroom we opened the curtains and windows.

The sound of its wings it flew in spasms.

I can’t believe the address we are staying on Horse Road.

There are donkeys on the hill they lowered their eyes

jerking their tails to discourage the flies.

The abbey’s stone windows open the sky.

On the beach we found ammonites in black stone.

Two boys with fishing rods cast again and again.

Four days of sunshine then in Scarborough it rained.

We didn’t go into the t-t-t-tower of t-t-t-t-terror

but watched two girls run out squealing and pale

chased by a boy in bandages with a chainsaw.

The castle had guides like mobile phones but bigger.

You could touch the repeat button and make it stutter.

We had Winston Churchill...

Table of contents

• from Henry’s Clock (1999)
• from Frank Freeman’s Dancing School (2009)
• from Bike, Rain (2013)