Proximity

An old UHER tape recorder with grille front,

gear-stick controls, red stripe on the monitor

warning of distortion and unusable testimony:

we trained on these, lugged them out to gauge

public opinion about the morning headlines,

asked interviewees to switch off fridges

while we tested levels with a question

about what they had for breakfast.

Banks of them charged in a cabinet

and you’d know which one was reliable,

which one might snarl no matter how

carefully you threaded the sprockets.

Dun tape fed through at seven and a half inches

per second: fifteen minutes to the spool.

In that time you had to get the story.

And now, behind glass, it squats there –

analogue dinosaur beyond its sell-by date.

This one was found in the House of Leaves,

chosen by the regime in Tirana to record

interrogations. Every week or so,

someone must have done what I did

and wiped accumulations of dirt

from the playback and recording heads.

Tom Phillips

Words of walking

For the last few months I've been writing a regular column for Bristol 24/7 magazine. They're all (sometimes rather tangentially) connected to walking in one way or another - things I've seen walking through the city, unexpected places I've ended up etc. There are links to a few of them here:
A short, sharp stab in the sole
At the pointy end of Spike Island
The art of walking
A load of dead men peeing
The ideology of our zebra crossings

Another 'Unknown Translation'

Another 'Unknown Translation', one of these poems originally written in Bulgarian and then translated into English emerged unexpectedly ...

The day after

The men continue to gather

in the squares and streets of the town.

Why are they here? They say they’re waiting

but they don’t know what for. The women

have decided to leave them and look for

a different name for contentment.

The children have gone with them,

they've accepted their fate.

The dark sky descends from the mountains

to warn those who will listen

that there has been a mistake. The sea

promises to build castles of sand

and to destroy them again every night.

Outside the doors of offices,

we grow frightened for no reason

and write silent letters in smoke.

Nobody remembers when this began.

The airport’s full. We want our things,

the things we need, but there is

nobody we can ask.

If only some definite disaster

had appeared, if only we could

foresee when it would happen

or where it would end.

Everything we’ve lost

returns to the squares and streets

where we have to wait

while the men decide to apologise

and ask the women to come home.

Under the clouds the children play

with new friends on the beach

where the sea no longer sings.

9 May 2015

Tom Phillips