Poor Door
Luke Kennard

Symbolist prose poem with a 12 line doggerel-esque ditty as back entrance, the ‘poor door’, or porte pauvre, should include a change-over word, or porte baisers, which finishes the prose poem and begins the first quatrain of the verse. The form reflects a trend in 21st century architecture whereby luxury apartment blocks are fitted with a secret service entrance for ordinary tenants.

We built a stack of gambling chips in your neighbourhood. It
crushed a scale model of itself. We waxed and bleached the
parkland to worry out the dealers. We covered it with grey and
black marble tiles: QR codes that took you straight to a snuff
movie. Our monogrammed postboxes are extra wide to allow for
the quality of stationery. It’s not that we look down on you – our
gentility’s unimpeachable – it’s that you’re out of place here: a
peach with genitals. It’s not about where you came from it’s how
you’re getting in. You don’t seem to grasp: nice is a weapon. You
don’t seem to grasp: you bought the mirrors that warped you.
We just don’t like what you like, that’s why we’re trying to avoid
you. And if policies and Holy Sees conspire against our sanctum,
you’ll argue that we think you’re less: it’s you who bears the
snobbery. Your public art: a giant marble nose. All we asked is
not living next door to the resentful. A neighbour who doesn’t
hold the door. Oh god: a wound, a hole, an aperture we don’t
know where it came from special brew to premier cru
                                     we all drink something fizzy
                                     excuse me, sorry, i-it’s the meek –
                                     we’re sure you’re very busy.

                                     you know we lack the savoir-faire
                                     to know where we’re not wanted
                                     our parents, no, our terroir, cared
                                     to raise us not to flaunt it.

                                     we’ll try to overlook your frown
                                     when you pass us in the hall
                                     we’ll try to keep the music down
                                     we know: the fucking gall.

Luke Kennard is a poet and writer of fiction. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2005 and his second collection, The Harbour Beyond the Movie (Salt, 2007), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. In 2014 he was named one of the Next Generation Poets by the Poetry Book Society. This poem was commissioned by the Emma Press for its Campaign in Poetry anthology. For more information visit: http://theemmapress.com/ 

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