This Week's Poem of the Day
ON HEARING A JAZZ TRIO PLAY SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT BY NIRVANA
I just turned on the radio, I'm washing up.
Make that, doing the
dishes. This band comes on
and I don't know who it is but I start to
recognise
the tune, only they've looped it out, slung it like a lasso
round the saddle of the song. I'm starting
to like how the bass
bends the bit where
Kurt Cobain sings
here we are now,
entertain
us. The drums too, are doing something
weird, something almost out of sync. Suddenly
it all sounds rather
Swedish. The melody's been pushed
around, an amiable steering as if,
left as it was,
it might come to harm, something might go
terribly wrong. It's so quiet in here after the piano
sings
hello,
hello, hello, hello.
The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.
