Harry Man

Harry Man (b. 1982) was Poet in Residence at StAnza Poetry Festival in St. Andrews, Scotland 2016. His pamphlet, Lift, was published by Tall Lighthouse in 2013. In 2014 he won the UNESCO Bridges of Struga Award. He is a 2016 Hawthornden Fellow and his next pamphlet is called Finders Keepers and is published by Sidekick Books.


 


Night Shifts at Old Monterey’s

 

Now the houselights have fallen in Screen 2,
the beagle barks at the turbine’s snapping
crossing the corn; a Fairfield storm is not all
in your mind and in Screen 1 Bruce Wayne trains
for the second time today to become Batman.
Zhora’s synthetic snake scale is enhanced,
through the targeting grid, a meteor dazzles down,
the emperor recalculates, students go to return.
At the box office a clairvoyant sat in row L
with our ghost, during the 6:30 The Beat
That My Heart Skipped
, “For a while he was
most content,” she says to the gap in the glass,
“then he rose from his seat, strode up to the curtain
and was gone.” Lemongrass tea steam drifts
across the ticket stubs I am counting, again.
Strangling a bin liner our chief usher says,
“He don’t like sad films, locking up evenings
I hear him. He likes stealing tools.” Outside
the double doors, the sleet does not quite
settle, our thoughts run through the traffic
to meet one other, even if it all ends
in the blink of an eye.


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