Impression III
where to start if not in denial
shooting what is not understood
in order not to be shot
for consorting with the subtle
that ambiguous definition of the un-argued
pointless associated non-ideas
protect condemnation of the state
witless doves cave in darkness
as the coward free from fear
is always the first to pull the trigger
of all denied beginning
29/02/2016
#poem #poetry #amwriting #beehive #bradford beehivepoets digest compilation
Don't mind me...
I'm just putting some poems together for my trip to the Beehive tonight....
...
On Carrying Your Child
One day you will be too big to lift
or kiss
or look on with the love of a parent
who loves you for what you were
and are not now
tucked into my shoulder
and reached around my neck
with hands as trusting
as my faith of what you will become.
...
What You Won't Read In the Guardian
Tonight at noon, I was struggling with a metaphor:
an imaginary girl was sitting in an imaginary coffee shop
reading an imaginary copy of Henry James:
in order to make a metaphor for something I imagined
might be of more interest than it was to me.
I wanted to create the illusion that her eyes; her grey eyes:
were like a seal breaking the surface of the water.
That would be allowable I believe.
Dull.
But, allowable.
A suitable subject for a poem; about nothing;
that would offend no one, and maybe evoke some kinship
before slipping back beneath the waves: like a seal.
That was today at noon.
But now not so much.
Who was the girl? What was she wearing?
Why was she in that cafe 'where nets hung like shrouds'
and the outside world 'mere shadows on the latticed glass'?
I don't know.
Of course she was middle class, in a flowered dress
and leggings.
Why else would she be reading Henry James?
Or in a tea shop? Come to that.
For one must be bourgeois to write poetry.
And one must forget all the movements of art
and deal only in the constructs of the in-humane:
the terse, the deus ex-machina of the leftist,
the eternal fragrant future, and the toothless poor in bus stations;
who while they occasionally amuse: for poetic pathos:
exist only to eternally confirm, and deny.
Rather like those girls in Rotherham; sorry; slags:
who have waited years for justice to be denied
by the overshadowing of their abuse by the timely production
of yet more dirt on Saville, and the other celebs.
Strange.
I mean far be it for a simple poet
to point out the years in which we were told not to speak
or it would fuel the 'right wing',
And how useful that Savile can prove white men do it too,
whenever a turn in the shameful affair comes to light.
No doubt when the police start getting sacked,
and it comes to light that officers of the council were up to no good,
a new report will come out
to show Savile was doing the same.
And the name Rotherham, need not be mentioned
again.
...
There are things you don't want to know;
like did your mother orgasm at your conception.
It's bad enough to think she orgasmed at all.
Not out of unkindness:
or in a fatalist manner;
that somehow
her reaction to your father's thrusting
influenced the shape of your nose.
Rather, your mother is inviolable: to you at least;
how else could her love be unconditional.
Or not.
Not all mother's are the same.
How else to explain
How else to explain.
...
Impression V
She takes me to a gallery; an exhibition: a sale of pictures
and asks which one I should choose.
The paintings are nice.
The colour is good.
The composition fine.
The frames are worth a bob or two.
And as I think of this
passing the abattoir at midnight
a single sheep bleats.
Studies by the sea.
Pastoral scenes in Victorian style:
families grazing on the beach.
I suggest the only painting, that to my eye, contains life
a hurried sketch of a girl of seven,
in a whirl of white dress,
caught between that moment of sandcastle or sea:
tucked into a corner of the wider scene.
And, while she runs through the reasons
of why she will buy a different picture
I think of a camel.
And, the stored fat of the hump:
and her fat arse and thighs.
...
Love Letters to a Cousin
...
...
How odd, that by the rules we must respond
with something more than 'very good', 'I like that',
'try to bat on it's almost tea'.
In the strange world of prose on a postage stamp
the form is to say how we would have done it better.
Better than what?
Better than looking out of the window, perhaps
or sarcastically carping harder that the carping crowd.
I should write a manifesto, or start a movement:
make strident metaphorical announcements of the new,
the fresh, the revolution in poetics.
At least it will give me a rule to break.
If I'm feeling really silly, I might adhere to the style;
allow the adoring to think no more.
But like all wallflowers
I shall smooth my dress and smile;
and not utter,
'they might try writing poetry' -
or better still, reading it aloud -
it is allowed you know.
No perhaps not.
Nothing destroys more quickly.
It will do no good. The prosey crowd
will not change - where would they hang their beret -
and novels take so long to write.
No, it is read it once and forget.
Or like poorly programmed Hoovers sniffing away
until they run into an obstacle
and then it's 'what does quodlibet mean?'
Any excuse, not to read.
...
starts at 8 for 8.30, at the Beehive on Westgate... do come along....
I'm just putting some poems together for my trip to the Beehive tonight....
...
On Carrying Your Child
One day you will be too big to lift
or kiss
or look on with the love of a parent
who loves you for what you were
and are not now
tucked into my shoulder
and reached around my neck
with hands as trusting
as my faith of what you will become.
...
What You Won't Read In the Guardian
Tonight at noon, I was struggling with a metaphor:
an imaginary girl was sitting in an imaginary coffee shop
reading an imaginary copy of Henry James:
in order to make a metaphor for something I imagined
might be of more interest than it was to me.
I wanted to create the illusion that her eyes; her grey eyes:
were like a seal breaking the surface of the water.
That would be allowable I believe.
Dull.
But, allowable.
A suitable subject for a poem; about nothing;
that would offend no one, and maybe evoke some kinship
before slipping back beneath the waves: like a seal.
That was today at noon.
But now not so much.
Who was the girl? What was she wearing?
Why was she in that cafe 'where nets hung like shrouds'
and the outside world 'mere shadows on the latticed glass'?
I don't know.
Of course she was middle class, in a flowered dress
and leggings.
Why else would she be reading Henry James?
Or in a tea shop? Come to that.
For one must be bourgeois to write poetry.
And one must forget all the movements of art
and deal only in the constructs of the in-humane:
the terse, the deus ex-machina of the leftist,
the eternal fragrant future, and the toothless poor in bus stations;
who while they occasionally amuse: for poetic pathos:
exist only to eternally confirm, and deny.
Rather like those girls in Rotherham; sorry; slags:
who have waited years for justice to be denied
by the overshadowing of their abuse by the timely production
of yet more dirt on Saville, and the other celebs.
Strange.
I mean far be it for a simple poet
to point out the years in which we were told not to speak
or it would fuel the 'right wing',
And how useful that Savile can prove white men do it too,
whenever a turn in the shameful affair comes to light.
No doubt when the police start getting sacked,
and it comes to light that officers of the council were up to no good,
a new report will come out
to show Savile was doing the same.
And the name Rotherham, need not be mentioned
again.
...
There are things you don't want to know;
like did your mother orgasm at your conception.
It's bad enough to think she orgasmed at all.
Not out of unkindness:
or in a fatalist manner;
that somehow
her reaction to your father's thrusting
influenced the shape of your nose.
Rather, your mother is inviolable: to you at least;
how else could her love be unconditional.
Or not.
Not all mother's are the same.
How else to explain
How else to explain.
...
Impression V
She takes me to a gallery; an exhibition: a sale of pictures
and asks which one I should choose.
The paintings are nice.
The colour is good.
The composition fine.
The frames are worth a bob or two.
And as I think of this
passing the abattoir at midnight
a single sheep bleats.
Studies by the sea.
Pastoral scenes in Victorian style:
families grazing on the beach.
I suggest the only painting, that to my eye, contains life
a hurried sketch of a girl of seven,
in a whirl of white dress,
caught between that moment of sandcastle or sea:
tucked into a corner of the wider scene.
And, while she runs through the reasons
of why she will buy a different picture
I think of a camel.
And, the stored fat of the hump:
and her fat arse and thighs.
...
Love Letters to a Cousin
Let memory speak of time without stars
bathed in the sunlight of gardens remembered.
Beauty still remains, amid the brassy dream
unsentimental as this skyline picked by cranes.
Everywhere is elsewhere here, to be copied
or mocked, left to blacken or rot or built
gelded beyond the height of gilded arcades.
But wait. Do I come to pander or to praise
those conservations, to the pretensions of this town.
Or to find in refraction of refracted memory
my genuine affection, for a place I rather like.
I want to say slag heap.
I want to say concrete.
I want to ridicule the chavs on bikes
and the dreary view on grey Sunday mornings
as the 16a rounds Armley gaol
and all the world tumbles down the dog-shit slope
to the pebble-dash and double-glazed.
But that is not me. Nor does it reflect how I feel.
Or why I began in memory of that garden on the Selby Road:
looking out, through the hedge, to fields.
Letters Found
You, like Sylvia, only knew two words,
always and never: which you carried caged
like linnets of a stolen song.
How nice to take a knife to you,
your watermarks, your curling hand,
to read afresh your streaming thought
before that well ran dry.
Or so I thought; and thought now,
appreciating these love letters
to one hundred petty brightnesses:
as luminant as rain.
You, like Sylvia, only knew two words,
always and never: which you carried caged
like linnets of a stolen song.
How nice to take a knife to you,
your watermarks, your curling hand,
to read afresh your streaming thought
before that well ran dry.
Or so I thought; and thought now,
appreciating these love letters
to one hundred petty brightnesses:
as luminant as rain.
How odd, that by the rules we must respond
with something more than 'very good', 'I like that',
'try to bat on it's almost tea'.
In the strange world of prose on a postage stamp
the form is to say how we would have done it better.
Better than what?
Better than looking out of the window, perhaps
or sarcastically carping harder that the carping crowd.
I should write a manifesto, or start a movement:
make strident metaphorical announcements of the new,
the fresh, the revolution in poetics.
At least it will give me a rule to break.
If I'm feeling really silly, I might adhere to the style;
allow the adoring to think no more.
But like all wallflowers
I shall smooth my dress and smile;
and not utter,
'they might try writing poetry' -
or better still, reading it aloud -
it is allowed you know.
No perhaps not.
Nothing destroys more quickly.
It will do no good. The prosey crowd
will not change - where would they hang their beret -
and novels take so long to write.
No, it is read it once and forget.
Or like poorly programmed Hoovers sniffing away
until they run into an obstacle
and then it's 'what does quodlibet mean?'
Any excuse, not to read.
...
starts at 8 for 8.30, at the Beehive on Westgate... do come along....
#poem #poetry #amwriting Mendication
Mendication
these day of all days
it is best to avoid all news
and instead watch the washing sud
and turn
allow the winding whir
the chutter
the watery cough
to built inside you
then with a crescendo splashed
move with the program to spin
and dry - damp
these day of all days
it is best to avoid all news
and instead watch the washing sud
and turn
allow the winding whir
the chutter
the watery cough
to built inside you
then with a crescendo splashed
move with the program to spin
and dry - damp
#poem #poetry #amwriting Safe Space
Safe Space
The Jewish question hangs between us
I note the flinch in the eyes.
But do not understand why.
Perhaps it is the imagined assumption
that she might rise as smoke: too.
And so we back-peddle, for the brake.
And, talk of semi-colons
and grammatical Latinate imposition.
As if the bundled faggots of law
might extricate, an ill judged word.
How careful all speech must be
when thoughts are crimes, not invitation.
The Jewish question hangs between us
I note the flinch in the eyes.
But do not understand why.
Perhaps it is the imagined assumption
that she might rise as smoke: too.
And so we back-peddle, for the brake.
And, talk of semi-colons
and grammatical Latinate imposition.
As if the bundled faggots of law
might extricate, an ill judged word.
How careful all speech must be
when thoughts are crimes, not invitation.
27/02/2016
#poem #poetry #amwriting #leadstoleeds Civil Marriage
Civil Marriage
In magnified translation,
of the Henry Moore: the library
swoons on an ottoman.
A cornflower confection of lace and buttons
corset down to the swoop of skirt;
which in a moment of private abandon
has revealed her dreadfully thin ankle
and a clumsily squareness of shoe.
Across the road,
her fob-watched husband,
reads aloud the household accounts:
in stentorian Doric tone.
Dutifully frock-coated,
in a pinstripe of grime,
he stands square, and proud:
almost handsome, just sublime.
She rests upon her elbow,
to hear
(ignoring the wedding party
posing for pictures)
if she has money for novels
this year.
And, if among her coffee cups
the defaced copy of Goethe,
will receive repair.
In magnified translation,
of the Henry Moore: the library
swoons on an ottoman.
A cornflower confection of lace and buttons
corset down to the swoop of skirt;
which in a moment of private abandon
has revealed her dreadfully thin ankle
and a clumsily squareness of shoe.
Across the road,
her fob-watched husband,
reads aloud the household accounts:
in stentorian Doric tone.
Dutifully frock-coated,
in a pinstripe of grime,
he stands square, and proud:
almost handsome, just sublime.
She rests upon her elbow,
to hear
(ignoring the wedding party
posing for pictures)
if she has money for novels
this year.
And, if among her coffee cups
the defaced copy of Goethe,
will receive repair.
#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook notes 27 feb
within enfolded cliches of stars and sky
cloudless rain gathers. Our eyes adjust
in focus again, to see nothing of the sun.
Trees blaze dark fire, fanned in whisps
whispered low.
....
the weather has not come
it is changed
a white greyness of mind
still hungover from a surfeit of whiskey
and wine
only in the tone does shape form
in subtle jags
of barely cloud and barley
barely what?
The sky makes no promise
if there is no God.
....
words say rather less that reputation
...
it's me, the lady who was sneezing
on your answer phone
...
click click click
the masked bandit shoots at the bus stop
can you spare fifty pence
accosts the chancer
the curving carved boar lane
runs away
hemmed by gemmed building on the right
reflected by the glass and steel of the middle
confection
ceiling echo and repeat
bright lit rush repeats
spiraling upwards and away
the escalated lines rise toward
to the domed tessellation of the roof
a station of commerce
without destination
red brick
grey stone
biege concrete adobe
....
besides the fob watched square set grandeur
of the town hall, stands his civic wife
dressed in french style
botoxed bustled by the henry moore
the rather slim queen anne
ornate of decolage, looks away
from the chink and rattle
of the cafe.
Gordon is gone
Burns, Scott and Dante look down
Goethe has been defaced
Welcome to the harem
the mosiac of everything
where still the moon and stars
stays blackened by the ghosts of gas lamps
....
the women liked a woman with a gut
victory on the war memorial
is interestingly posed
between releasing the dove
and sizing it up for lunch
while the corseted George
rather half-heartedly pokes at the dragon
while bleeding green
on the patriotic message
....
note - conversation about gordon, and gallery closed for roof repairs
queen anne pope poem, british art exhibition bring house down
EU money and feminist art thingy
cloudless rain gathers. Our eyes adjust
in focus again, to see nothing of the sun.
Trees blaze dark fire, fanned in whisps
whispered low.
....
the weather has not come
it is changed
a white greyness of mind
still hungover from a surfeit of whiskey
and wine
only in the tone does shape form
in subtle jags
of barely cloud and barley
barely what?
The sky makes no promise
if there is no God.
....
words say rather less that reputation
...
it's me, the lady who was sneezing
on your answer phone
...
click click click
the masked bandit shoots at the bus stop
can you spare fifty pence
accosts the chancer
the curving carved boar lane
runs away
hemmed by gemmed building on the right
reflected by the glass and steel of the middle
confection
ceiling echo and repeat
bright lit rush repeats
spiraling upwards and away
the escalated lines rise toward
to the domed tessellation of the roof
a station of commerce
without destination
red brick
grey stone
biege concrete adobe
....
besides the fob watched square set grandeur
of the town hall, stands his civic wife
dressed in french style
botoxed bustled by the henry moore
the rather slim queen anne
ornate of decolage, looks away
from the chink and rattle
of the cafe.
Gordon is gone
Burns, Scott and Dante look down
Goethe has been defaced
Welcome to the harem
the mosiac of everything
where still the moon and stars
stays blackened by the ghosts of gas lamps
....
the women liked a woman with a gut
victory on the war memorial
is interestingly posed
between releasing the dove
and sizing it up for lunch
while the corseted George
rather half-heartedly pokes at the dragon
while bleeding green
on the patriotic message
....
note - conversation about gordon, and gallery closed for roof repairs
queen anne pope poem, british art exhibition bring house down
EU money and feminist art thingy
#poem #poetry #amwriting On Carrying Your Child
On Carrying Your Child
One day you will be too big to lift
or kiss
or look on with the love of a parent
who loves you for what you were
and are not now
tucked into my shoulder
and reached around my neck
with hands as trusting
as my faith of what you will become.
One day you will be too big to lift
or kiss
or look on with the love of a parent
who loves you for what you were
and are not now
tucked into my shoulder
and reached around my neck
with hands as trusting
as my faith of what you will become.
26/02/2016
#poem #poetry #amwriting What You Won't Read in the #Guardian
What You Won't Read In the Guardian
Tonight at noon, I was struggling with a metaphor:
an imaginary girl was sitting in an imaginary coffee shop
reading an imaginary copy of Henry James:
in order to make a metaphor for something I imagined
might be of more interest than it was to me.
I wanted to create the illusion that her eyes; her grey eyes:
were like a seal breaking the surface of the water.
That would be allowable I believe.
Dull.
But, allowable.
A suitable subject for a poem; about nothing;
that would offend no one, and maybe evoke some kinship
before slipping back beneath the waves: like a seal.
That was today at noon.
But now not so much.
Who was the girl? What was she wearing?
Why was she in that cafe 'where nets hung like shrouds'
and the outside world 'mere shadows on the latticed glass'?
I don't know.
Of course she was middle class, in a flowered dress
and leggings.
Why else would she be reading Henry James?
Or in a tea shop? Come to that.
For one must be bourgeois to write poetry.
And one must forget all the movements of art
and deal only in the constructs of the in-humane:
the terse, the deus ex-machina of the leftist,
the eternal fragrant future, and the toothless poor in bus stations;
who while they occasionally amuse: for poetic pathos:
exist only to eternally confirm, and deny.
Rather like those girls in Rotherham; sorry; slags:
who have waited years for justice to be denied
by the overshadowing of their abuse by the timely production
of yet more dirt on Saville, and the other celebs.
Strange.
I mean far be it for a simple poet
to point out the years in which we were told not to speak
or it would fuel the 'right wing',
And how useful that Savile can prove white men do it too,
whenever a turn in the shameful affair comes to light.
No doubt when the police start getting sacked,
and it comes to light that officers of the council were up to no good,
a new report will come out
to show Savile was doing the same.
And the name Rotherham, need not be mentioned
again.
Tonight at noon, I was struggling with a metaphor:
an imaginary girl was sitting in an imaginary coffee shop
reading an imaginary copy of Henry James:
in order to make a metaphor for something I imagined
might be of more interest than it was to me.
I wanted to create the illusion that her eyes; her grey eyes:
were like a seal breaking the surface of the water.
That would be allowable I believe.
Dull.
But, allowable.
A suitable subject for a poem; about nothing;
that would offend no one, and maybe evoke some kinship
before slipping back beneath the waves: like a seal.
That was today at noon.
But now not so much.
Who was the girl? What was she wearing?
Why was she in that cafe 'where nets hung like shrouds'
and the outside world 'mere shadows on the latticed glass'?
I don't know.
Of course she was middle class, in a flowered dress
and leggings.
Why else would she be reading Henry James?
Or in a tea shop? Come to that.
For one must be bourgeois to write poetry.
And one must forget all the movements of art
and deal only in the constructs of the in-humane:
the terse, the deus ex-machina of the leftist,
the eternal fragrant future, and the toothless poor in bus stations;
who while they occasionally amuse: for poetic pathos:
exist only to eternally confirm, and deny.
Rather like those girls in Rotherham; sorry; slags:
who have waited years for justice to be denied
by the overshadowing of their abuse by the timely production
of yet more dirt on Saville, and the other celebs.
Strange.
I mean far be it for a simple poet
to point out the years in which we were told not to speak
or it would fuel the 'right wing',
And how useful that Savile can prove white men do it too,
whenever a turn in the shameful affair comes to light.
No doubt when the police start getting sacked,
and it comes to light that officers of the council were up to no good,
a new report will come out
to show Savile was doing the same.
And the name Rotherham, need not be mentioned
again.
25/02/2016
#poem #poetry #amwriting Super Predator
Super Predator
(for Rickey Ray Rector)
The pecan pie waits for later,
half headed joke or strangled hope
who remembers now?
Never mind, never mind.
There's a special place in hell
for those ingrates and the awkward,
who wonder,
and will not avert from
the trail of women slandered.
Never mind, never mind.
But, look to the fragrant future,
what difference does it make
and help the fragrant leader
to find your vein.
(for Rickey Ray Rector)
The pecan pie waits for later,
half headed joke or strangled hope
who remembers now?
Never mind, never mind.
There's a special place in hell
for those ingrates and the awkward,
who wonder,
and will not avert from
the trail of women slandered.
Never mind, never mind.
But, look to the fragrant future,
what difference does it make
and help the fragrant leader
to find your vein.
#poem #poetry #amwriting Impression III
Impression III
as snakes eat snakes
and we fear death
and still -
the internet persists.
then buy us by the yard
and inch
and measure each and every flinch
and still
you'll not perceive
or glimpse the face we show
and the face we have
as snakes eat snakes
and we fear death
and still -
the internet persists.
then buy us by the yard
and inch
and measure each and every flinch
and still
you'll not perceive
or glimpse the face we show
and the face we have
#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook mother
There are things you don't want to know;
like did your mother orgasm at your conception.
It's bad enough to think she orgasmed at all.
Not out of unkindness:
or in a fatalist manner;
that somehow
her reaction to your father's thrusting
influenced the shape of your nose.
Rather, your mother is inviolable: to you at least;
how else could her love be unconditional.
Or not.
Not all mother's are the same.
How else to explain
How else to explain.
like did your mother orgasm at your conception.
It's bad enough to think she orgasmed at all.
Not out of unkindness:
or in a fatalist manner;
that somehow
her reaction to your father's thrusting
influenced the shape of your nose.
Rather, your mother is inviolable: to you at least;
how else could her love be unconditional.
Or not.
Not all mother's are the same.
How else to explain
How else to explain.
24/02/2016
#poem #poetry #amwriting escort
Scorta
the old fat fascist toad
fears to feel, fears to grow
fears the thought it does not know
nor cares to know
or feel
no
the old fat fascist toad
the old fat fascist toad
fears to feel, fears to grow
fears the thought it does not know
nor cares to know
or feel
no
the old fat fascist toad
#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook of all things
Bestar my mouth with whiskey.
Peaten whisps of the fragrant,
of the dead, of the dying day.
Of all things good beyond
that burst from children;
outpoured in jumped, clapped spinning
smile.
Of all things good beyond.
Peaten whisps of the fragrant,
of the dead, of the dying day.
Of all things good beyond
that burst from children;
outpoured in jumped, clapped spinning
smile.
Of all things good beyond.
#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook notes 24 feb
how your eye excites me, lingered
dancing as your laughter, rolling
wild, bouncing, as the matted heather
lifted on the upward moor. The golden
brackened memory does not crack nor break
a little too close, too intimate
in the contraception of comfortable time:
when all discourse labours to consider
if what we say is repetition.
The thrill of what attracts
does not repel but re-enforces.
....
all poetry is reliable narration
betwixt disgust and reason hinges
the secret soundings of the soul
all poetry is reliable narration
lies the wind lies the wind
that wind who fathered Cain
jealous of quiet spaces
the honoured man the wind
carries the voice of the living
and the dead unreliable now
....
all poetry is relaible narration
jealous of quiet spaces
lies the wind, lies the wind
betwixt disgust and reason hinged
....
the wind who Cain begot
jealous of quiet spacees
the honoured man, the wind
betwixt disgust and reason hinged
lies the wind, lies the wind
in sounding of the secret soul
jealous of quiet spaces
carries the voice of the living
or the dead unrelaibel now
all poetry is reliable narration
....
the wind begetting Cain
jealous of quiet space
the honoured man, that wind
betwist disgust and reason hinged
lies the wind, lies the wind
in sounding of the secret soul
jealous of quiet spaces
carries the voice of the living
or the dead unreliable of now
....
all poetry is reliable narration
jealous of quiet space
a little to close. too intimate
in contrapunction of conception
....
what sahll I them them Lord
say yes
...
what shall I tell them Lord, tell them
but catch outstretched in joyous turning
the tear that tastes the lip
all poetry is reliable narration
jealuos of quiet spaces
a little too close, to intimate
dancing as your laughter, rolling
wild, bouncing, as the matted heather
lifted on the upward moor. The golden
brackened memory does not crack nor break
a little too close, too intimate
in the contraception of comfortable time:
when all discourse labours to consider
if what we say is repetition.
The thrill of what attracts
does not repel but re-enforces.
....
all poetry is reliable narration
betwixt disgust and reason hinges
the secret soundings of the soul
all poetry is reliable narration
lies the wind lies the wind
that wind who fathered Cain
jealous of quiet spaces
the honoured man the wind
carries the voice of the living
and the dead unreliable now
....
all poetry is relaible narration
jealous of quiet spaces
lies the wind, lies the wind
betwixt disgust and reason hinged
....
the wind who Cain begot
jealous of quiet spacees
the honoured man, the wind
betwixt disgust and reason hinged
lies the wind, lies the wind
in sounding of the secret soul
jealous of quiet spaces
carries the voice of the living
or the dead unrelaibel now
all poetry is reliable narration
....
the wind begetting Cain
jealous of quiet space
the honoured man, that wind
betwist disgust and reason hinged
lies the wind, lies the wind
in sounding of the secret soul
jealous of quiet spaces
carries the voice of the living
or the dead unreliable of now
....
all poetry is reliable narration
jealous of quiet space
a little to close. too intimate
in contrapunction of conception
....
what sahll I them them Lord
say yes
...
what shall I tell them Lord, tell them
but catch outstretched in joyous turning
the tear that tastes the lip
all poetry is reliable narration
jealuos of quiet spaces
a little too close, to intimate
23/02/2016
#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook patterns
here is the poem that you want to read
and here is the poem I wrote
and here is the pattern that you didn't see
and here is the poem I wrote
and here is the pattern that you didn't see
#poem #poetry #amwriting Impression IV
Impression IV
She said: she said; she said, uh,
in that way.
I went, I said, I went listen.
And she went, you know
like she does.
Well she did.
Well she'd have to now; what with
you know.
That's what she says.
Uh.
She said it to me: when I went round.
I went say it, and she said, uh
you know. That's her all over.
When she went, you know,
that way, I said uh, that's it.
She can say what she likes.
(birdsong)
She said: she said; she said, uh,
in that way.
I went, I said, I went listen.
And she went, you know
like she does.
Well she did.
Well she'd have to now; what with
you know.
That's what she says.
Uh.
She said it to me: when I went round.
I went say it, and she said, uh
you know. That's her all over.
When she went, you know,
that way, I said uh, that's it.
She can say what she likes.
(birdsong)
#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook notes 22 feb
how strange, on a full moon, on a freezing evening
in a land of square space without horizon
to think of a camel
as a metaphor for something
Hello Mrs (what is her name) uh Derek.
How's your wife? Oh you're alright are you.
I must go.
They all step out once, at the station
smelling of quick cigarettes and deordourising mint.
I step in
take a seat
soak in the lemon of the toilet, slightly sugared.
sweet burning wood caught black
burst unispiring words - get more
detached by experience
I said to her, I said to her, uh, I said to her
stiff legged, unconnected
to the body: loop armed
through the drunken night they go.
I went to her, I said to her
clip clop, tumble on with bunions.
in a land of square space without horizon
to think of a camel
as a metaphor for something
Hello Mrs (what is her name) uh Derek.
How's your wife? Oh you're alright are you.
I must go.
They all step out once, at the station
smelling of quick cigarettes and deordourising mint.
I step in
take a seat
soak in the lemon of the toilet, slightly sugared.
sweet burning wood caught black
burst unispiring words - get more
detached by experience
I said to her, I said to her, uh, I said to her
stiff legged, unconnected
to the body: loop armed
through the drunken night they go.
I went to her, I said to her
clip clop, tumble on with bunions.
#poem #poetry #amwriting Impression V
Impression V
She takes me to a gallery; an exhibition: a sale of pictures
and asks which one I should choose.
The paintings are nice.
The colour is good.
The composition fine.
The frames are worth a bob or two.
And as I think of this
passing the abattoir at midnight
a single sheep bleats.
Studies by the sea.
Pastoral scenes in Victorian style:
families grazing on the beach.
I suggest the only painting, that to my eye, contains life
a hurried sketch of a girl of seven,
in a whirl of white dress,
caught between that moment of sandcastle or sea:
tucked into a corner of the wider scene.
And, while she runs through the reasons
of why she will buy a different picture
I think of a camel.
And, the stored fat of the hump:
and her fat arse and thighs.
She takes me to a gallery; an exhibition: a sale of pictures
and asks which one I should choose.
The paintings are nice.
The colour is good.
The composition fine.
The frames are worth a bob or two.
And as I think of this
passing the abattoir at midnight
a single sheep bleats.
Studies by the sea.
Pastoral scenes in Victorian style:
families grazing on the beach.
I suggest the only painting, that to my eye, contains life
a hurried sketch of a girl of seven,
in a whirl of white dress,
caught between that moment of sandcastle or sea:
tucked into a corner of the wider scene.
And, while she runs through the reasons
of why she will buy a different picture
I think of a camel.
And, the stored fat of the hump:
and her fat arse and thighs.
22/02/2016
#poem #poetry #amwriting #beehive #bradford beehivepoets digest compilation
Don't mind me...
I'm just putting some poems together for my trip to the Beehive tonight....
.....
Love Letters to a Cousin
I'm just putting some poems together for my trip to the Beehive tonight....
.....
Love Letters to a Cousin
Let memory speak of time without stars
bathed in the sunlight of gardens remembered.
Beauty still remains, amid the brassy dream
unsentimental as this skyline picked by cranes.
Everywhere is elsewhere here, to be copied
or mocked, left to blacken or rot or built
gelded beyond the height of gilded arcades.
But wait. Do I come to pander or to praise
those conservations, to the pretensions of this town.
Or to find in refraction of refracted memory
my genuine affection, for a place I rather like.
I want to say slag heap.
I want to say concrete.
I want to ridicule the chavs on bikes
and the dreary view on grey Sunday mornings
as the 16a rounds Armley gaol
and all the world tumbles down the dog-shit slope
to the pebble-dash and double-glazed.
But that is not me. Nor does it reflect how I feel.
Or why I began in memory of that garden on the Selby Road:
looking out, through the hedge, to fields.
.....
Kitsch
Love, it is love, once again love.
Sorry I didn't mean... if you're busy
I was just saying how frustrating it is
to read. The moon blazes fire, burns
in yearning majesty of love's lost return:
in turning, burns, the returning still.
She cuts the conversation. Lights a cigarette
with Vesta, The phosphor somehow suits
her nature. Everything she says
is fashionable beyond the sake of comfort
and nowhere, to her disappointment, can be found
a single reference in the bible, to a single shit.
Sorry I didn't mean... I was just saying
its frustrating if you're busy, to read;
just saying. And why, why hang your hat
upon reflection, the burning face returning
of what we thought was loved and lost.
Once again love, love, it is love.
Does what we see in the mirror shit?
Shit, shit, shit, there I said it.
You said I wouldn't.
Said I couldn't.
Shit, shit, shit, there it is again,
wearing a crucifix, with crossed fingers.
You said I shouldn't.
Again.
Again we apologise, again and again:
for those excursions of understanding
again.
I'm sorry, but it is a serious point
made smooth:
why make love when it mostly shit
and madness;
in glaring reflection of a shitless future.
Sorry I didn't mean... if you're busy
I was just saying how frustrating it is
to read. Again. I didn't mean sorry...
how frustrating if you're busy. I say
I was just reading again, I say sorry
again, again, sorry again.
Again, I didn't mean sorry: again.
Love, it is love, once again love.
Sorry I didn't mean... if you're busy
I was just saying how frustrating it is
to read. The moon blazes fire, burns
in yearning majesty of love's lost return:
in turning, burns, the returning still.
She cuts the conversation. Lights a cigarette
with Vesta, The phosphor somehow suits
her nature. Everything she says
is fashionable beyond the sake of comfort
and nowhere, to her disappointment, can be found
a single reference in the bible, to a single shit.
Sorry I didn't mean... I was just saying
its frustrating if you're busy, to read;
just saying. And why, why hang your hat
upon reflection, the burning face returning
of what we thought was loved and lost.
Once again love, love, it is love.
Does what we see in the mirror shit?
Shit, shit, shit, there I said it.
You said I wouldn't.
Said I couldn't.
Shit, shit, shit, there it is again,
wearing a crucifix, with crossed fingers.
You said I shouldn't.
Again.
Again we apologise, again and again:
for those excursions of understanding
again.
I'm sorry, but it is a serious point
made smooth:
why make love when it mostly shit
and madness;
in glaring reflection of a shitless future.
Sorry I didn't mean... if you're busy
I was just saying how frustrating it is
to read. Again. I didn't mean sorry...
how frustrating if you're busy. I say
I was just reading again, I say sorry
again, again, sorry again.
Again, I didn't mean sorry: again.
....
C'est une Pipe
La feu c'est margin des lune entente
concord la lune un feu.
Mes tout; sept pas; mon encore
la lune.
Que quelle fille, appel mon coeur,
c'est feu, je jure la lune.
Avec mon coeur, mon feu, mon lune:
mon coeur, pas lune, mon feu.
La feu c'est margin des lune entente
concord la lune un feu.
Mes tout; sept pas; mon encore
la lune.
Que quelle fille, appel mon coeur,
c'est feu, je jure la lune.
Avec mon coeur, mon feu, mon lune:
mon coeur, pas lune, mon feu.
....
Letters Found
You, like Sylvia, only knew two words,
always and never: which you carried caged
like linnets of a stolen song.
How nice to take a knife to you,
your watermarks, your curling hand,
to read afresh your streaming thought
before that well ran dry.
Or so I thought; and thought now,
appreciating these love letters
to one hundred petty brightnesses:
as luminant as rain.
You, like Sylvia, only knew two words,
always and never: which you carried caged
like linnets of a stolen song.
How nice to take a knife to you,
your watermarks, your curling hand,
to read afresh your streaming thought
before that well ran dry.
Or so I thought; and thought now,
appreciating these love letters
to one hundred petty brightnesses:
as luminant as rain.
....
Between Stations
intemperate frigid loved unlovely love
grasping with the sweating palms
sweating hard in chasing time
in reaching for the well kept wine
we crush the glass before we drink
what line may bind the larking flite
or ken to understand in song
scrolled litany unwind of those done wrong
by us - or others unappeased
frigid loved unlovely does not love nor care
unlovely let all be mud toed between the parts
of childhood we lived and forgot
when debonair was but gauche glanced
consequential free from following event
without the tape nor starting gun
or there beneath the arching shadow
bedded with untraveled tramp
unloved frozen by chilled fingers
of illuminate always lightened night
we may cling still unless we push
we might wake surprised to found
what yesterday blocked unkind
within us has within ourself out drunk
not applied the metaphor or smile
illiterate of all we fear to feel of dust
intemperate frigid loved unlovely love
grasping with the sweating palms
sweating hard in chasing time
in reaching for the well kept wine
we crush the glass before we drink
what line may bind the larking flite
or ken to understand in song
scrolled litany unwind of those done wrong
by us - or others unappeased
frigid loved unlovely does not love nor care
unlovely let all be mud toed between the parts
of childhood we lived and forgot
when debonair was but gauche glanced
consequential free from following event
without the tape nor starting gun
or there beneath the arching shadow
bedded with untraveled tramp
unloved frozen by chilled fingers
of illuminate always lightened night
we may cling still unless we push
we might wake surprised to found
what yesterday blocked unkind
within us has within ourself out drunk
not applied the metaphor or smile
illiterate of all we fear to feel of dust
....
for the workshop....
Eden's Loss
Where yesterday, they lay unbound within
that pit of joy: skipping pleasure's eye shone:
processing o'er the virgin stars of night.
Uncleaved, the fruit, no cloven star reveals
but split between it's equal parts, seen
in critical comprehension; what perfect
in created form: forms patterns accidental.
As the bud yields to the bee, craving the light
it opens fully in it's natural innocence: so they,
there, entangled of their duty reach for that
reflected: reflected in the surging of the heart.
And thus they fall in generation. In expression;
in the turning of the lamp-light low, they dim
to shine with brighter swelling fire; but fall:
not from grace, or lost desire, or shame.
Just the ticking hands of time. And the space
which hourly grows, where before it pruned
in constant of those dreams not present.
When they might, in the sin of adultery, reflect
upon their lesser self: and that they did not know
Where yesterday, they lay unbound within
that pit of joy: skipping pleasure's eye shone:
processing o'er the virgin stars of night.
Uncleaved, the fruit, no cloven star reveals
but split between it's equal parts, seen
in critical comprehension; what perfect
in created form: forms patterns accidental.
As the bud yields to the bee, craving the light
it opens fully in it's natural innocence: so they,
there, entangled of their duty reach for that
reflected: reflected in the surging of the heart.
And thus they fall in generation. In expression;
in the turning of the lamp-light low, they dim
to shine with brighter swelling fire; but fall:
not from grace, or lost desire, or shame.
Just the ticking hands of time. And the space
which hourly grows, where before it pruned
in constant of those dreams not present.
When they might, in the sin of adultery, reflect
upon their lesser self: and that they did not know
...
starts at 8 for 8.30, at the Beehive on Westgate... do come along....
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