Richard Branson
My love, I feel like this print of Rothko.
I am small and glassy and I want to impress you,
even if it means murdering one of your work colleagues.
You think if you stare long enough at your noodles
you’ll see the combination to the safe.
I don’t have the heart to tell you the truth.
Even the elephant on the 20 Rand note
you gave me for good luck back in 2009
will end up spent in the end.
You adjust my tie and I grow a little older.
On cold hungover days, the white sun follows us
through Jesus Green to the Carphone Warehouse.
Shrek watches from the electrical shop across the street;
seven Shreks, running in parallel across a burning rope bridge.
It’s impossible to root for any of them.
A millionaire’s hairstyle
is trapped in the era that they first made their money.
The air turns green above the poles of the Earth.
‘Richard Branson’ from Emergency Window © Ross Sutherland. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Penned in the Margins, 2013.
My love, I feel like this print of Rothko.
I am small and glassy and I want to impress you,
even if it means murdering one of your work colleagues.
You think if you stare long enough at your noodles
you’ll see the combination to the safe.
I don’t have the heart to tell you the truth.
Even the elephant on the 20 Rand note
you gave me for good luck back in 2009
will end up spent in the end.
You adjust my tie and I grow a little older.
On cold hungover days, the white sun follows us
through Jesus Green to the Carphone Warehouse.
Shrek watches from the electrical shop across the street;
seven Shreks, running in parallel across a burning rope bridge.
It’s impossible to root for any of them.
A millionaire’s hairstyle
is trapped in the era that they first made their money.
The air turns green above the poles of the Earth.
‘Richard Branson’ from Emergency Window © Ross Sutherland. Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Penned in the Margins, 2013.
|
In the Scottish Poetry Library podcast, Ross Sutherland talks about the hairstyles of millionaires, how John Cooper Clarke inspired him, and about taking part in one of the more unusual poetry readings of recent times.
|
|
|
Watch Auld Enemies: a poetry documentary by Ross Sutherland. The Enemies project: Auld Enemies was a transnational poetry collaboration where six poets worked in rolling paired to produce original works for readings across the breadth of Scotland and where in each event also featured numerous pairs of writers from the region, who also presented brand new poetry
|
|
