UNPACKING MR. JONES
Poems by John Latham

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John Latham is one of the most original poets to have emerged in the 1980’s. Formerly a professor of Physics, he is now a full-time writer of novels, stories and radio plays as well as poetry. His poems have been published in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies. He won the Lake Aske Competition in 1980 and the Hastings Competition in 1981. This is his first published volume of poetry.

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Unpacking Mr. Jones

On the evening of the funeral, Timothy
declined to say his prayers:
’God will be too busy, unpacking Mr Jones’.

God strained once more against the crowbar,
holy sweat-beads sneaking down his face,
dripping from his beard onto the box.
Nails creaked their anguish, held.

God rolled up his sleeves, spat into his palms.
His white cloak lifted as he leaped into the air,
descended like vengeance on the crowbar.
The lid slipped primly away.

God slid his trolley beneath the box,
tipped out Mr Jones,
in his bus-conductor’s trousers,
blinking through his glasses at the sun.

God poked him with the finger that writes on walls.
He toppled into space,
glided through the golden light,
settled on the platform of a double-decker bus.

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UNPACKING MR. JONES
Price £7.95 per copy post free (£5.30 post free to Associate Members)
Cover illustration: by Karen Webber, aged 11
Publication: 1982 (56 pages laminated paperback)