Tom Leonard

Tom Leonard’s Access to the Silence was published last year by Etruscan Books.

Poem: ‘Remembrance Day’

Tom Leonard, 4 August 2005

I know what it is to be powerless

I know what it is to be made to lie low

while the unknown enemy invades you

what it is not to have words

for what is happening for grass and tree

and inanimate thing to be

your only witness on the clearest day

of a childhood almost fifty years ago;

how I hate male

fucking violence. this day

I will wear nor white nor red

nor count myself solitary instead

I...

Poem: ‘The Fair Cop’

Tom Leonard, 7 July 2005

a cop came to see me but I didn’t know he was a cop I’m so trusting!! and I said sit down and have a cup of tea and he sat down and had a cup of tea

and he was a young man a nice looking young man he reminded me of my son the taller of my sons very discreet a good listener

and I said would you like a banana? I eat bananas like a gorilla but the cop didn’t want a banana he...

Poem: ‘Monotheism’

Tom Leonard, 11 March 1993

(male) I think therefore I am I (male) think therefore I am I think (male) therefore I am I think therefore (male) I am I think therefore I (male) am I think therefore I am (male)

Poem: ‘poem’

Tom Leonard, 6 August 1992

yi surta keep trynti avoid it thats thi difficult bitty it

jist no keep findn yirsell sitn

wotchn thi telly ur lookn oot thi windy

that wey yi say christ a could

go a roll n egg ur whuts thi time fuck me

wiv nay cookn oil nwi need potatoes

Under the Sphinx

Alasdair Gray, 11 March 1993

This is the first full-length study of James Thomson’s life and work since Henry Salt’s in 1889. Thomson’s poem The City of Dreadful Night is known by name to many but has...

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