This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave is a remarkable tour de force by one of this country’s finest emergent poets. Let’s be clear, this is not a volume for everyone; the uninitiated won’t be getting their hands dirtier by attempting to fathom its inner cadences, the beauty of its lyrical lilt, its ghostly echoes of Eliot and intimations of Ovid. Let’s leave them to the twelve-bar blues of their democratic doggerel, playground poesy, and sing-song simplicia. If poetry is the new rock ’n’ roll, then God help us all. What Salt gives us is opera.

I wondered whether Liz has ever caressed Toby Salt’s magic flute. After a few minutes, I looked down at the paper and noticed how my ballpoint had punctured the page and ripped Toby Salt’s stupid papery face to shreds.

Monday August 27th

Bloodshed

They found him, several days on,

head stoved in by his Remington,

sitting as if slumbered at his desk,

were it not for that ungodly mess

which had seeped into his sonnet.

And there, cut out and pasted on it,

at the centre of this macabre scene,

was Matthew Chapter 5, Verse 13,

the initials BB scribed underneath.

The Bible Butcher, thought the police.

We were waiting for Meet Me at the Gallows, a Goth band from Cheadle. Darren had turned up wearing a high-viz urban gilet and carrying a large fluorescent sign on a pole which said STOP: CHILDREN CROSSING.

‘Sorry. New job starts next week. Had to come straight from the training course,’ he explained. ‘Didn’t have time to go back and change.’

I nodded my head as imperceptibly as I could in the hope that no one would notice that we knew each other.

‘By the way,’ Darren went on, ‘Stuart tells me you’re looking for a job at the moment.’

I shrugged indiscernibly.

‘Only the instructor today mentioned they had a couple of vacancies, if you’re interested. Pay’s not great but the hours are short.’

I looked off into the mid-distance.

‘Anyway, what I’m saying is that I could put in a good word for you on the whole lollipop front.’ He winked and then tapped a finger on the side of his nose.

I was about to raise my left eyebrow silently in response when he thrust his giant lollipop at me and shouted, ‘Go on! Give it a go! Try this one for size!’

Only the sudden arrival on stage of Meet Me at the Gallows saved me. I used the distraction of their presence to edge steadily away from Darren and establish a human shield of goths around myself. I could see him glowing in the distance as the band launched into their crowd-pleasers: ‘The Bloodied Veil’, ‘The Rose that Blackens on the Branch’, ‘Suicide in Crouch End’, ‘I Can See Blood Upon Your Hands’, ‘The Bible Butcher’, ‘Crumbling Bones’.

All in all, a really fun evening for all the family. Four stars. Would recommend!