Three poems by Tom Norton
Atomic Jam, Birmingham, October 2001
following a crocodile of blokes dressed as neon nuns with habits
shining orange and fluorescent blue we scale the stairs, kick drum
rumbling through double doors, inside the giant nave stained
glass saints bow to glow sticks and boiler suits, seats slope in
galleries toward the packed and bouncing floor, green lasers from
the rafters cutting smoke and strobe with Hawtin on the altar
spinning missives of enfolding sound
thighs jitter full decks of camels and sock-smuggled pills as we
ready in wooden pews to ascend, for the swell from stomach to
fingers to brain, for the leaping and grinning, the wringing of
hands and the strutting, the blur, warped faces and sweat-palmed
embraces, sour cigarettes in chill-out rooms, gurning reconciliations
to head massages from a dreadlocked girl – the world outside has
shifted, office workers fall to flee the acrid smoke as steel towers
crash into the dust, our leaders tensing vengeance, in here we beat,
molecules vibrating to a common technic heart, laying claim to
our millennium, though we know what is to come
foetal shiverings as slideshow scenes unravel under eyelids,
snapshots of a shuffling dawn, glances on buses from african
mothers in sunday best, their pinks and oranges blanching
colour from our pallid faces as we hold the rails, eyes darting
anywhere but back
New Marigny
Flip-flopped feet splash the coloured
shotguns of Dauphine, in darkness
cross the tracks at Press, frogs call
from storm puddles. Candy plays blind
inside Big Daddy’s, ban forcing crowds
onto the corner, neighbours earplugged
through the night. In the Spotted Cat
I spin with green-haired Emily, between
Sazerac and Makers Mark, Bruno blasting
blues on alto sax, down Frenchmen
lights and sirens stop illicit jazz with jeers
from jocks and lawyers, who cling to neon
hand grenades and stagger the Big Easy.
Above St Claude no whites walk,
bass lines rattle wooden shutters,
grandmothers resigned on peeling
porches, storm-strength windows
smashed at St Roch Market,
‘Fuck yuppies’ painted on the wall,
while a new Marigny builds.
Dropping Coins
In a tequila sweat I wake to rows of drivers baking in tin boxes and
leaning on their horns, Mixtec mother screaming ‘giant balloons!’
beneath my window while the old boy hawking scratch cards is
straining to be heard and the organ grinder who once under his
breath called me a fucking gringo has begun his day’s rotation of
the handle – I listen to this bees’ nest, watch the colours in the
furry morning heat and then I’m with them, sweating on my way
for heuvos and frijoles. By the high wall of Santísima Trinidad my
man exits a taxi on his hands, gorilla shoulders heaving him across
the pavement where he rolls his blanket out onto the dust.
‘Buenos días, joven,’ his large face creases recognition because
I am the sore thumb, particularly tall and pink, that passes every
day, often dropping coins into his hat. And, spooning salsa onto
eggs, I wonder where he sleeps, who drops him off and picks him
up each day, how in six months I haven’t seen him angry or upset,
give any sign of irritation at the chaos of the city, nor of pain
though his bones are buckled, not even in his eyes which speak,
saying ‘no, I never long for crisp spring mornings, for grass still
wet with dew, for bitter beer and car rides through quiet Surrey
hills,’ and he will hunch on his brown blanket long after I’m gone,
nodding up at passers-by, an island in the clamour of the street.