Lot One:
blossom bursting like popcorn,
a chain reaction.
This magnolia,
a bright hosanna
in the sunlit bay
between two buttresses,
borne up in excelsis,
as breeze buoys a dress.
The dog eating a bone
with ill-fitting dentures (listen).
Aran cauliflower knitting.
Lizards are linen.
There is a bobbin
in every Cox’s pippin.
In Moscow, I saw
dead electric razors
in a shop window,
piled like a sample
of deep damp
Aldeburgh shingle.
Everything must go.
Everything you know.
Everything you’ll never know.
Craig Raine is a poet, novelist and critic, and was the editor of Areté.
[See also: The NS Poem: from uncivil]
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This article appears in the 12 May 2021 issue of the New Statesman, Without total change Labour will die