Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Tim Parksin conversation with Natalia Ginzburg
(PN Review 49)
Next Issue Hal Coase 'Ochre Pitch' Gregory Woods 'On Queerness' Kirsty Gunn 'On Risk! Carl Phillips' Galina Rymbu 'What I Haven't Written' translated by Sasha Dugdale Gabriel Josipovici 'No More Stories' Valerie Duff-Strautmann 'Anne Carson's Wrong Norma'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
PN Review 275
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 173, Volume 33 Number 3, January - February 2007.

Open the Paper Window Richard Price

Open the paper window -
there's whisky, repatriated from duty-free.

A little ankle bracelet -
Mhairi where are you now?

A crouching platoon, months under the double bed,
a lick-down mine.

Open the paper window - snow!
the only white Christmas -
four brothers - wool bales - piled low on the hurtling
sledge.

Scaletrix. A red car, a green car -
they're from my father to my father.
We were just intermediaries.

It seems repetitive to mention the train set,
but later you could hide hash in the papier-maché tunnel.

Open the window. It counts against me
I can remember not a single present my mother received.

Open the window - a bit of peace and quiet from you shower
or there'll be no Christmas this year!

Open the window - a tangerine,
miraculous, the orange for learners.
A tall candle, E-type red, has melted the pewter candlestick.
There's a brown-and-green black-and-white tv,
call it television please.

Bells and mirrors for a baby thirty-five years ago.
Bells and mirrors for a baby ten years ago.

Thomas Hardy, cheer us up!

Open the paper window -
Mum and Dad are going to Midnight Mass.
(You're in trouble - you were seen enjoying yourself
at Midnight Mass.)

How does Father Christmas fill the stocking?
We stayed awake as long as we could!

Open the window -
glowing pastels.

Open the window -
tinsel.

Open the window.
Try not to electrocute yourself this time! They aren't sweeties!

Black bags of exhausted wrapping.
She definitely said batteries included.

For the nineteenth time you're not getting a gun
for bloody Christmas!

Open the window.
Too much brandy butter.

Open the window, the last paper window
(it's quiet here, under the tree) -

the present: abstract, perfect,
waiting to be opened.

This poem is taken from PN Review 173, Volume 33 Number 3, January - February 2007.



Readers are asked to send a note of any misprints or mistakes that they spot in this poem to editor@pnreview.co.uk
Further Reading: - Richard Price More Poems by... (8) Articles by... (3) Interview by... (1) Reviews by... (6) Interview with... (1) Reviews of... (2)
Searching, please wait... animated waiting image