Clifford 78

Graham Clifford

Les Enfants du Paradis

We would wait
until the light inside and out
found dim equilibrium
to start work at the dairy. Slipping
sharp plastic lids on cream pots
or putting a suspect heat into forearms
when we shrink-wrapped hot yoghurts
to the bang and comedy clank of machines
which spat blackcurrant scraps and sicked-up
vicious solvents that grew holes
in my Egon Schiele t-shirt
like grey matter degenerating.

A piggy man leant back
his paper boiler suit ripped
at the gusset to give him cool air and room
to fart. He smiled as he packed
with defective friends. His hands were
ten mini penises on steaks.

Breaks were hidden from the fox-stunned night
in an underground cafe, strip light
deleted shadow.
On the back of a magazine
in blue and grey, the classy script
in the advert for new Artificial Eye classics:
Les Enfants du Paradis, Police, L’Atalante,
peering into one frame of a film that might make
it better than two crates an hour
of posh yoghurt and bog standard,
funnelled from the same vat
into varying qualities of receptacle.


Graham Clifford lives in London. His most recent collection is In Charge of the Gun (Black Light Engine Room), 2021. His poems have appeared in Magma, The Rialto and the Forward Book of Poetry 2015 and he has collections by Seren and Against the Grain. https://grahamcliffordpoetry.com/