LEBANESE FOOD CENTRE, ACTON, NOVEMBER by John Lanyon

 


 

John Lanyon lives in West Oxfordshire where he works as a gardener, linguist, musician and writer. He is approximately 25% of the poetry quartet The Four Wordsmen (www.fourwordsmen.com). John is excited by the secret lives of words, the play between the animate and inanimate world, the spirit of places. He thinks a poem has a kind of DNA and if you can find the first piece the rest will follow. It’s detective work.  Tea helps. 

 


 

 

             

             

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

LEBANESE FOOD CENTRE, ACTON, NOVEMBER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Persimmons peaches oranges
defy the rain.

Inside
chips and kebabs
tabouleh and Coca Cola ™
the fiery unfamiliar script
small armies of tins
press against each other
pickles and preserves
Nescafé® and halva.
Steel skewers
sheathed in ground lamb
line up.
The brass trough
the red-hot charcoal.

He wraps the salad
tight in the thin bread
anoints with the lemon
tahini olive oil mix
cuts in two.

Swarthy silent men
draw their over-patterned knitwear
closer to their bodies.

 

John Lanyon

 

The Whit-Horn is Calling by John Lanyon

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