TERMINUS
Poems 1979-83
Poems by David Jacobs

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David Jacobs was born in London in 1949. He began writing poetry seriously in the late 1970’s, since when his work has been widely published in literary magazines at home and abroad, among them London Magazine, Stand, The Literary Review and Poetry Review. He has also won awards and commendations in national competitions and appeared in Arts Council anthologies. Although Terminus is his first major collection, he has been published in booklet form, including Marlowe Court (Kit-Cat Press, 1981) which Event magazine described as ‘remarkable for its very subtle powers of evocation’. Between the years 1979-81 Jacobs was involved with the Hammersmith Poetry Festival, editing its anthology Flyover which published, among others, the work of Stephen Spender, P. J. Kavanagh and Laurie Lee.

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Terminus

Electric tills blink like digital watches.
Hostesses wear army hats and name badges
Pinned to a height of breasts. Their
Male supervisors are in shirtsleeves and
Wear biros around their necks like crosses.
They move through corridors of open
Planned equipment where boxed meat repeats
Itself on assembly lines. Opposite the tills

Sleepy queues wander into each other.
Food is carried on plastic trays to
Mushroom tables the design of targets.
Customers sit around with their coats on
In chairs precisely shaped for bottoms.
The leavers post debris into boxes
And make cold air with the door.
I nibble thin chips, consider my life.

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TERMINUS
Price £7.95 per copy post free (£5.30 post free to Associate Members)
Cover design: Mary Dunkin
Publication: 1984 (52 pages laminated paperback)