Excerpts from Kangarewe & Wittgenstein’s Whoopee Cushion
A selection of new work from Poetry World Cup winner Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé.
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La Disparue
“The girl addressed as “you†in countless poems/ escapes. She’s sick of being told/ what she knows perfectly well…” Weekend poem, by Frederick Pollack.
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Reconsecrated
“We hunted down/ politeness with iced vodka/ and flew outside, where the night/ took your tongue and gave it to mine.” Poem of the Week (July 22), by Janet Lees.
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Pangolin/Lion
“…the grand horror of his head, stretching/ into the fang-house/ that clatters and clatters/ against this armoured morsel/ this shock of Pangolin…” Weekend poem, by James Coghill.
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Getting a Superstar Girlfriend
“We leered at each/ bright star sparkling over the city,/ even ones guarded by mist/ and asteroids like angry fathers…” Poem of the Week (July 15), by Inua Ellams.
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Grandmother’s Vocabulary
“She wanted us to remain girls/ for as long as biology would allow.” Weekend poem, by Joey Chin.
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Little Mother
“Fleet-footed/ as a deer at seventy, Little Mother warms/ water for the family, cooks breakfast/ and dinner, tidies up the fallen decades.” Poem of the Week (July 8), by Usha Kishore.
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My grandfather
“…he never bothered/ learning another script,/ dependent still, at 73, on his grandchildren/ to read him ice-cream signs…” Weekend poem, by Akhil Katyal.
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Tributary
“How could you not be captivated/ by her bohemian chic/ and dirty bare feet,/ voice chanting with sounds/ borrowed from our unrecorded past.” Poem of the Week (July 1), by Richard King Perkins II.
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Sempre
“…only/ the blood on the moonlit sand/ black and soaking: the laughter/ of a lion’s ribcage left.” Weekend poem, by Isaac Nowell.
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