Sweet, like Rinky-Dink

Mark Waldron was born in New York in 1960 and grew up in London. He works in advertising and lives in East London with his wife and son. He began writing poetry in his early 40s. He published two collections with Salt, The Brand New Dark (2008) and The Itchy Sea (2011), which were followed by two from Bloodaxe, Meanwhile, Trees (2016) and Sweet, like Rinky-Dink (2019).

• 13 I wish I loved lawnmowers15 Brute Creation16 Sixteen Found Dogs17 The Take-Off18 Las Aves Vacías19 Sarouk Mohajeran21 Your Face 22 Diving for Pearls23 Sweet, like Rinky-Dink24 The Stick25 Light that falls26 WW1 Marcie28 What are things 29 The body is a kind of home, 33 Hobnobbing with Elephants34 A Scabbarding35 Manno36 A Drip37 Oh no,38 Coming Through!39 Endpiece40 Supination41 How to Get a Gibbet through the Small Hole42 Poor light,43 Angry with Trees44 The Dragonfly and Berries46 My Hopeless Marcie47 Ice Cream for I Scream48 As Though Begat, but Not49 How scrubbed-up clean50 The first time I came upon him,52 How to Tap a Field Mushroom53 A Closed Sandwich54 The main event57 No wonder58 A Flying Visit59 Ordinary People, We Just Don’t See Them60 The Wild West61 Even now that we live exclusively63 What are you doing taking the air64 My God, my Marcie’s got65 My brain likes fish,66 My brain is a fool,67 My boneheaded brain69 The words you sweat,70 The Lighthouse Keeper72 Buddies73 Even when74 Trees, Breeze and Rabbits76 Childhood

I get nervous for Mark Waldron's readers – I can hear them begin to laugh a little, becoming too comfortable too quickly, while reading a poem of his and I want to warn them. I want to yell at them to get out of the way, tell them that what's really happening is that they are about to get their hearts broken. Poor monkeys.