New Poetry by Jonathan Beale

Cars in New York 1976 

(after the photography of Langdon Clay) 

The ice, implicit, only thought of… 
in those darkened corners
from street to meatpacking floor

someone’s Buick lays outside 
faithfully as an old mongrel
lacking class, strong as an ox 

those shadowy figures in ‘Whites’
that Hopper would have sketched;
only for some momentarily blinking eye

the beguiling scent of frying flesh…
from those cold carcasses 
they were not long before, across the street. 

Life was just cars and bars and meatpacking
As discardable as steel and rubber
That we secretly admired and took for granted 

Later we walked past ‘Pats’ Hot & Cold Hero’s
And Buick lay there (for its keeper to return)
In silent, shut up, Soho, just catching forty winks. 


- Jonathan Beale 2020

Jonathan Beale has had numerous poems published in over sixty journals including Danse Macabre, Bluepepper, Mad Swirl, Ygdrasil, Red Wolf Editions, Sheepshead Review, Poetry 24, Penwood Review, et al.  He is also published in two anthologies ‘Drowning’ and ‘The Poet as Sociopath’ (Scar publications).  And one to be published ‘Do not be afraid’ a small anthology dedicated to Seamus Heaney. His first book of poetry The Destinations of Raxiera (Hammer and Anvil) in November 2015. Jonathan lives in Surrey U.K.