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(a) they seek to celebrate the word not to bring their knives out on a poem dissecting it to find a heart whose beat lies naked on a table not to score in triumph on a line no sensitive would put a nostril to but simply to receive it as an offering glimpsing the sacred there poem probes the poet's once-intention but each time said budges its truth afresh (leaving the poet's self estranged from the once-intending man) and six ears in the room have tuned objectives sifting the coloured strands the words have hidden from the poet asking what world has come to light people measured by their heartbeats language can't flout that come-and-go to touch the heartbeat in a poem calls for the brain's surrender a warm diffusion of the mind a listening to an eery silence the words both mimic and destroy (no excuses slipping off the tongue) and when a poem works the unknown opens a timid shutter on a world so familiar it's not been seen before - and then it's gone bringing a frisson to an altered room and in a stuttering frenzy dusty attributes are tried to resurrect a glimpse of what it's like inside a truth (the glow a glow-worm makes) this is not (not much) what happens there's serious concern and banter there's opacity there's chit-chat diversions and derailings from a line some avalanche has blocked (what a fine pass through the mountains) poetry and fidgets are blood-brothers it's within all these the cosmos calls that makes these afternoons a rich adventure through a common field when three men moving towards death (without alacrity but conscious of it) find youth again and bubble with its springs - opening worn valves to give such flow their own direction there's no need of competition no wish to prove that one of us holds keys the others don't to the sacral chambers - no want to find consensus in technique or drench the rites of words in orthodox belief - difference is essential and delightful (integrity's all) quality's a private quarrel between the poem and the poet - taste the private hang-up of receivers mostly migrained by exposure to opinions not their own - fed from a culture no one bleeds in sustained by reputations manured by a few and spread by hearsay (b) these meetings are a modest vow to let each poet speak uncluttered from establishment's traditions and conditions where passions rippling from the marrow can choose a space to innocent themselves and long-held tastes for carlos williams gurney poems to siva (to name a few) can surface in a side-attempt to show unexpected lineage from the source to present patterns of the poet - but at the core of every poem read and comment made it's not the poem or the poet being sifted to the seed but poetry itself given the works the most despised belittled enervated creative cowcake of them all in the public eye prestigious when it doesn't matter to the clapped-out powers and turned away from when too awkward and impolitic to confront - ball to be bounced from high art to low when fights break out amongst the teachers and shakespeare's wielded as a cane as the rich old crusty clan reverts to the days it hated him at school but loved the beatings - loudhailer broken-down old-banger any ram-it- up-your-**** and suck-my-prick to those who want to tear chintz curtains down and shock the cosy populace to taste life at its rawest (most obscene) courtesan to fashion and today's ploy - advertisement's gold gimmick slave of beat and rhythm - dead but much loved donkey in the hearts of all who learned di-dah di-dah at school and have been stuck in the custard since plaything political-tool pop- star's goo - poetry's been made to garb itself in all these rags and riches this age applauds the eye - is one of outward exploration - the earth (in life) and universe (in fiction) are there for scurrying over - haste is everything and the beat is all fireworks feed the fancy - a great ah rewards the enterprise that fills night skies with flashing bountifuls of way-out stars - poetry has to be in service to this want (is fed into the system gracelessly) there can be no standing-still or stopping-by no take a little time and see what blossoms here - we're into poetry in motion and all that **** and i can accept it all - what stirs the surface of the ocean ignores the depths - what talks the hindlegs off the day can't murder dreams - that's not to say the depths and dreams aren't there for those who need them - it's commonplace they hold the keystones of our lives i fear something else much deeper the diabolical self-deceiving (wilful destruction of the spirit) by those loudspeaking themselves as poetry's protectors - publishers editors literature officers poetry societies and centres all all jumping on the flagship competition's crock of gold find the winners pick the famous all the hopefuls cry please name us aspiring poets search their wardrobes for the wordy swimsuit likely to catch the eyeful of the judges (winners too in previous contests inured to the needle of success but this time though now they are tops totally pissed-off with the process only here because the money's good) winners' middle name is wordsworth losers swallow a dose of shame organisers rub their golden hands pride themselves on their discernment these jacks have found the beanstalk castle harp and the golden egg the stupid giant and his frightened wife who let them steal their best possessions whose ear for poetry's so poor they think fum rhymes with englishman and so of course they get no prizes thief and trickster now come rich poetry's purpose is to hit the jackpot so great the lust for poetic fame thousands without a ghost of winning find poems like mothballs in their drawers sprinkle them with twinkling stardust post them off with copperplate cheques the judges wipe their arses on them the money's gone to a super cause everyone knows it's just a joke who gets taken - the foolish and vain if they're daft enough and such bad poets more money than sense the best advice is - keep it up grannies the cause is noble and we'll take your cheque again and again and again it's the winners who fall in the bog to win is to be preened - conceit finds a little fluffy nest dear to the feted heart and swells there fed (for a foetal space) on all the praisiest worms but in the nest is a bloated thing that sucks (and chokes) on hurt that has the knack of pecking where there's malice - it grows two heads winners by their nature soon become winged and weighted - icarus begins to prey upon their waking dreams prometheus gnawed by eagles the tight-shut box epimetheus gave pandora about to burst apart - yeats's centre cannot hold being poets they know the references and they learn the lesson quickly climb upon others as they would climb on you - in short be ruthless or be dead they mostly fade away being too intact or too weak-willed to go the shining way with light- ning bolts at every second bend agents breathing fire up their pants those who withstand the course become the poets of their day (and every one naturally good as gold - exceptions to the rule - out of the hearing and the judgment of their rivals) the media covet the heartache and the bile - love the new meteor can't wait to blast it from the heavens universities will start the cult with-it secondary teachers catch the name on fast - magazines begin to taste the honey on the plate and soon another name is buzzing round the bars where literary pass- ons meet to dole out bits of hem i accept it all - it's not for me above it all the literary lions (jackals to each other) stand posed upon their polystyrene mountains constructed by their fans and foes alike (they have such need of them) disdaining what they see but terror- stricken when newcomers climb up waving their thin bright books for so long they've dubbed themselves the intellectual cream - deigning to hand out poems when they're asked (for proper recompense in cash or fawning) - but well beyond the risk of letting others turn the bleeders down so sure they are they're halfway to the gods (yet still need preening) a poem from one of them is like the loaves and fishes jesus touched and rendered food for the five thousand they too can walk on water in their home - or so the reviewers say poetry from their mouths is such a gift if you don't read or understand it you'll be damned - i accept all that but what i can't accept is (all this while) the source and bed of what is poetry to me as cracked and parched - condemned ignored made mock of shoved in wilderness by those who've gone the gilded route (mapped out by ego and a driving need to claim best prick with a capital pee) it's being roomed with the said poem coming back and back to the same felt heartbeat having its way with words absorbing the strains and promises that make the language opt for paths no other voice would go - shifting a dull stone and knowing what bright creature this instinct has bred there it's trusting the poet with his own map not wanting to tear it up before the ink is dry because the symbols he's been using don't suit your own conception of terrain you've not been born to - it's being pleased to have connections made in ways you couldn't dream of (wouldn't want to)
just as the dusk comes hooting down through the shivering black leaves of the swinging trees we (the brave ones swaggering like marshalls through a lynch-mob) crash-bang our way to the door of the so-called haunted house knock knock - kick in a pane of glass and the dusk hoots louder in our ears and the swinging trees ride like a mob with murder in mind - knock knock - the heavy knocker on the solid door shaking the house - knock knock knock knock - louder shaking our brave bodies the heavy knocker of our hearts knock knock - knock knock knock we laugh with a harsh laughter we have never heard before push and shove each other in a boisterous fear lean on heave crash open the door fall in a heap inside - pick ourselves up courageous still giggling and bruised..... shush find words bounce our voices off the walls.... shush shush yell catcalls scream shriek roar batter and shatter..... shush shush shush oh shush yourselves no really - shush in the air under the stair what can we hear shush are you getting scared we knew it we knew that if we dared.... we can hear noises noises noises in an empty house the sound of our voices echoes in crevices rattles in doorways booms in the hollowness of empty rooms no that isn't all that doesn't explain the tall hooded silence standing in the hall or the whispering smell of dust bristling the floor scurrying like the dried-up bones of mice to the hole in the crumbling wall something snatches our voices away from us too quickly for our voices to be all nonsense the house is dead it can't harm us old bricks and wood you're letting the darkness go to your head shout if you don't believe us shout if anybody's there if anybody's there you won't get us afraid of you whoever you are whoever you are this is what we think of you boo boo boo what's wrong what's wrong tell us what's wrong listen nothing no nothing at all your voices went but they didn't return you called but nothing came back at all there's something there swallowing up words absorbing them into air heavy waiting alert (daddy-longlegs pitch on skin sinister fingers whisper through the roots of our hair....) ....we're not afraid of you nothing nobody we know you're there what is it at the end of the passage in the gloom by the still door eyeing without eyes everything we do sucking us in with its black stare you think it's funny don't you trying to frighten us keeping out of sight come out here if you're anything - we'll show you arms move suddenly along the wall the moon riding hard on foaming clouds stands solid in the door and it's not a good moon at all why did we come we should have stayed home but here we are in an evil room trapped between the witchcraft of an empty house and the cold hard grin of the moon i'm going in you can't i must you'll become air a heavy silence a dance of dust there's nothing there nothing nothing there he gives a brave laugh but a laugh drained of blood and moves down the passage to the masked door hesitates and turns wanting our support frightened to his heart's core steps no - is drawn - backwards into a black space rapidly dissolving in our misted eyes we half-hear a short gasp - no more the moon's grin is louder as (on his restless clouds) he bucks about the sky no one returns to us and in the morning (rooted in fear we could not leave the place but spent the night huddled in one big stack in the frozen hall) and in the morning we find not a single trace of the friend who went as simply as any word into thin air
(1) a great man there was a great man so great he couldn't be criticised in the light who died and for a whole week people turned up their collars over their ears and wept with great gossiping houses wore their roofs at a mournful angle and television announcers carried their eyes around in long drooping bags there was a hush upon the voice of the land as soft as the shine on velvet the whole nation stretched up into the dusty attic for its medals and black ties and prayers and seriously polished its black uncomfortable shoes and no one dared creak in the wrong places anybody who thought he was everybody except those who were nearly dying themselves wanted to come to the funeral and in its mourning the nation rejoiced to think that once again it had cut into the world's time with its own sick longing for the past the great man and the great nation had the same bulldog vision of each other's face and neither of them had barked convincingly for a very long time so the nation turned out on a cold bleak day and attended its own funeral with uncanny reverence and the other nations put tears over their laughing eyes v-signs and rude gestures spoke with the same fingers (2) aden tourists dream of bombs that will not kill them into the rock the sand-claws the winking eye and harsh shell of aden waiting for the pinch jagged sun lumps of heat bumping on the stunned ship knuckledustered rock clenched over steamer point waiting for the sun to stagger loaded down the hill before we bunch ashore calm eyes within their windows we walk (a town must live must have its acre of normality let hate sport its bright shirt in the shadows) we shop collect our duty-murdered goods compare bargains laugh grieve at benefit or loss aden dead-pan leans against our words which hand invisible knows how to print a bomb ejaculate a knife does tourist greed embroil us in or shelter us from guilt backstreet a sailor drunk gyrates within a wall of adenese collapses spews they roll about him in a dark pool the sun moves off as we do streets squashed with shops criss-cross of customers a rush of people nightwards a white woman striding like a cliff dirt - goats in the gutter crunched beggars a small to breed a fungus cafes with open mouths men like broken teeth or way back in the dark like tonsils an air of shapeless threat fluffs in our pulse a boundary crossed the rules are not the same brushed by eyes the touch is silent silence breeds we feel the breath of fury (soon to roar) retreat within our skins return to broader streets bazaars glower almost at candlelight we clutch our goods a dim delusion of festivity a christ neurotic dying to explode how much of this is aden how much our masterpiece all atmospheres are inbuilt an armoured car looms by the ship like mother brooding in the sea receives us with a sigh aden winks and ogles in the dark the sport of hate released slowly away at midnight rumours of bombs and riots in the long wake a disappointed sleep nothing to write home about except the heat (3) crossing the line (xii) give me not england in its glory dead nightmared with rotting seed palmerston's perverted gunboat up the yangtse's **** - lloyd george and winston churchill rubbing men like salt into surly wounds (we won those wars and neatly fucked ourselves) eden at suez a jacked-up piece of wool macmillan sprinkling cliches where the black blood boils (the ashes of his kind) - home as wan as godot (shagged by birth) wilson for whom the wind blew sharply once or twice sailing eastwards in the giant's stetson hat saving jims from the red long john give me not england but the world with england in it with people as promiscuous as planes (the colours shuffled) don't ask for wars to end or men to have their deaths wrapped up as christmas gifts expect myself to die a coward - proclaim no lives as kisses - offer no roses to the blind no sanctions to the damned - will not shake hands with him who rapes my wife or chokes my daughter only when drunk or mad will think myself the master of my purse - will lust for ease seek to assuage my griefs in others' tears will make more chaos than i put to rights but in my fracture i shall strive to stand a ruined arch whose limbs stretch half towards a point that drew me upwards - that ungot intercourse in space that prickless star is what i ache for (what i want in man and thus i give him) the image of that cross is grit within him - the arch reflects in microscopic waves through fleshly aeons beaming messages to nerves and typing fingers both ends of me are broken - in frantic storms hanging over cliffs i fight to mend them the job cannot be done - i die though if i stop how cynical i may be (how apt with metaphor or joke to thrust my fate grotesquely into print) the fact is that i live until i stop - i can't sit down then crying let me die or death is good (the freedom from myself my bones are seeking) i must go on - tread every road that comes risk every plague because i must believe the end is bright (however filled with vomit every brook) - if not for me then for those who clamber on my bones my hope is what i owe them - they owe their life to me
they say in the local sanctuary owls are the stupidest creatures all this wisdom business is the mythological media at work but the shortest nosing into books tells you even the mythic world is bamboozled by the creature - no two cultures being able to agree the bird was cherished by minerva hebrews loathed it as unclean buddhists treasure its seclusion elsewhere night-hag evil omen the baker's daughter's silly cry ungrateful chinese children the precious life of genghis khan sweet fodder to the owl's blink in the end it's the paradox i'll be what you want romantic fool that scares elates about the owl sitting in the dark and seeing all not true not true the cynics say the bloody fraudster's almost blind dead lazy till its stomach rattles its skill is seeing with its ears ruthlessness stupidity (transmogrified to wisdom) make the perfect pitch for power so proofed - why give a hoot for gods
professor piebald (the oldest man in the home) was meek at the same time ribald he clothed his matter (so to speak) in latin and (was it) greek it caused no great offence to nobody did it make sense to make a rude joke in languages nobody spoke once he'd changed the word agenda at a home's committee meeting to pudenda this sort of thing was tolerated by the other inmates (except his younger brother - a dustman all his life who'd robbed the professor of his wife and treated him now with disdainful anger but to everyone piebald was a stranger) well agenda/pudenda hardly ranked as humour but there was rumour piebald was said to have his eye on nelly (frail and pretty in a feathery fashion the sort perhaps to rouse a meek man's passion) she wouldn't talk to him without a tie on one such occasion burst the bubble he spoke (no tie on) she demurred refusing one further word and so the trouble piebald went white all over muttered about being her lover then shouted in a rage (nelly whispered be your age) i - two headed janus - now pingo your anus (less janus - i should have thought - than mars) and pinched the dear frail lady on the **** who died a second then exploded swung a punch so loaded poor old piebald eared it to the floor the other old ones in the room (more excited now than when the flowers came out in bloom) were rushing pushing to the door the brother stood across the fallen man in total icy disdain you academic lily-livered piss of a gnat he hissed - and spat into the piebald twitching face drew back a pace when wham - a seething body like a flung cat lifted upwards into space the younger brother was butted in the belly (who staggered back hit head and made a dying fall leaving a small red zigzag down the wall) then this sizzling flesh-ball fell on fluttering nelly tore at her skirt ripped other clothes apart began kissing her fervently on her agenda te amo te amo te amo te amo (repeating it as though it was the finest latin phrase he'd learned by heart) crying abasing himself to her most wanted gender she more dazed than hurt clutching the virgin fragments of her skirt a simpering victim in the rising clamour old people now outraged beyond controlling through the swing doors pushing tumbling rolling armed with saucepans pokers knives playing the greatest game in all their lives attacked without compunction the frenzied lover at his unction a poker struck him once across the head and professor piebald once meek but ribald dropped down undoubtedly dead and even when the horror had subsided and the arms of justice with their maker were abided nelly stood rocking in her room weeping for the heart-ache in her womb that till then had hardly ever fluttered and (only occasionally) muttered if you have your eye on me - my dear man - put your tie on the home itself was closed a few days after the house is riddled still by ribald laughter
(a) radical ban all fires and places where people congregate to create comfort put an end to sleep good cooking and the delectation of wine tear lovers apart piss on the sun and moon degut all heavenly harmony strike out across the bitter ice and the poisonous marshes make (if you dare) a better world (b) expect poison from standing water (iii) lake erie why not as a joke one night pick up your bed and walk to washington – sleep your damned sleep in its streets so that one bright metallic morning it can wake up to the stench and fermentation of flesh the gutrot of nerves – the blood’s green effervescence so active your skin has a job to keep it all in isn’t that what things with the palsy are supposed to do – lovely lake give the world the miracle it waits for what a laugh that would be especially if washington lost its temper and screamed christ lake erie i don’t even know what to do with my own garbage pollution is just one of those things go on lake erie do it tonight (c) drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead (i) isn't the next one easter egg i don't want to live any more in an old way yes it is to be a socialist wearing capitalism's cap a teacher in the shadow of a dead headmaster a tree using somebody else's old sap i want to build my future out of new emotions to seek more than my own in a spring surround to move amongst people keen to move outwards putting love and ideas into fresh ground who will come with me across this border not anywhere but in the bonds we make taking the old apart to find new order living ourselves boldly for each other's sake then love is if you ask me today what love is i should have to name the people i love and perhaps because it's spring and i cannot control the knife that's in me their names would surprise me as much as you for years i have assumed that love is bloody a thing locked up in house and a family tree but suddenly its ache goes out beyond me and the first love is greater for the new this year more than any other the winter has savaged my deepest roots and the easter sun is banging hard against the window the arms of my loves are flowering widely and over the fields a new definition is running even though the streets we walk cannot be altered and faces there are that will not understand we have a sun born of our mutual longings whose shine is a hard fact - love is a new land new spartans i haven't felt this young for twenty years yesterday i felt twenty years older then i had the curtains drawn over recluse fears today the sun comes in and instantly it's colder must shave and get dressed - i'm being nagged to shove my suspicions in a corner and get out what use the sun if being plagued with new life i can't throw off this centrally-heated doubt accept people with ice in their brows are the new spartans - they wait shall i go with them indoor delights that slowly breed into lies need to be dumped out of doors - and paralysis with them no leave it there's still one more the need now the need now is to chronicle new times by their own statutes not as ***-ends of the old ideas stand out bravely against the surrounding grey seeking their own order in what themselves proclaim fortresses no longer belong by right to an older day i want to gather in my hands things i believe in not to be told that other rules prevail - there is a treading forward to be done of great excitement and people to be found who by the old laws should be little more than dead this enlightment is cutting like spring into a bitter winter and there is this smashing of many concrete shells a dream with the cheek to be aggressive has assumed its own flesh and bone and will not put up with sleep as its prime condition - life out of death is exhumed it's the other side is so disappointing no thanks leave it for now (ii) there follows a brief interlude in honour of mr vasko popa (the yugoslav poet who in a short visit to this country has stayed a long time) and it will not now take place this game is called x no one else can play when the game is over we have all joined in those who have not been playing have to give in an ear if you don't have an ear use one of those lying about left over from the last time the game wasn't played this game is not to do with ears shooting must be done from the heart x sits in the middle of the ring - he has gone for a stroll up his left nostril how can he seize a left-over ear and drag it under the ground hands up if you have been shot from the heart x comes up in the middle of himself in this way the game is over before it began and everyone willy-nilly has had to go home before he could put a foot outside (d) enough! – or too much reading popa i let fly too many words i bang away at the seed but can’t break it hurt i turn to constructing castles with cards if you can’t split the atom man stop writing
(1) and off to scott's (the dockers' restaurant) burly men packed in round solid tables but what the helle (drowned in hellespont) this place for me was rich in its own fables i'll be the lover sunk if that enables an awesome sense of just how deep the spells that put scotts for me beyond the dardanelles lace-curtained windows (or memory plays me false) no capped odysseus could turn such sirens down or was it a circean slip that shocked the pulse all men are pigs when hunger rips the gown and these men were not there to grace the town service bustling (no time to take caps off) hot steaming food and noses in the trough i loved it deeply squashed in there with you rough offensive banter bantered back the smells of sweat and cargoes mixed with stew and dumplings lamb chops roast beef - what the **** these toughened men could outdo friar tuck so ravenous their faith blown off the sea that god lived in the stomach raucously perhaps cramped into scotts i felt it most that you belonged in a living sea of men who shared the one blood-vision of a coast tides washed you to but washed you off again too much history made the struggle plain but all the time there was this rough-hewn glimmer that truth wore dirty clothes and ate its dinner at midday - scotts was a parliament of sorts where what was said had not the solid weight of what was felt (or what was eaten) courts bewigged and stuffed with pomp of state were brushed aside in favour of the plate but those who entered hungry came out wise unspoken resolutions mulled like pies (2) and then the tram ride home (if we were lucky - and nothing during the day had caused despair) trams had a gift about them that was snaky wriggling their straitened ways from lair to lair they hissed upon their wires and flashed the air they swallowed people whole and spewed them out and most engorged in them became devout you either believed in trams or thought them heathen savage contraptions that shook you to your roots on busy jaunts there was no room for breathing damn dignity - rapt flesh was in cahoots all sexes fused from head-scarves to their boots and somewhere in the melee children pressed shoulders to crotches noses to the rest and in light-headed periods trams debunked the classier lissome ways of shifting freight emptied of pomp their anarchy instinct they'd rattle down their tracks at such a rate they'd writhe their upper structures like an eight being drawn by revelling legless topers strict rails (they claimed) gave sanction for such capers trams had this kind of catholic conviction the end ordained their waywardness was blessed if tramways claimed per se this benediction who cared if errant trams at times seemed pissed religions prosper from the hedonist who shags the world by day and prays at night those drunken trams still brim me with delight to climb the twisted stairs and seek a seat as tram got under way through sozzled rotors and find olympia vacant at my feet (the gods too razzled by the rasping motors - the sharps of life too much for absolutors) would send me skeltering along the aisle king of the upper world for one short while and all the shaking rolling raucous gait of this metallic serpent sizzling through the maze of shoppy streets (o dizzy state) sprinkled my heart-strings with ambrosial dew (well tell a lie but such a wish will do) and i'd be gloried as if leviathan said hop on nip and sped me to japan so back to earth - the tram that netley day would be quite sober bumbling through the town the rush-hour gone and night still on its way mum lil and baby (babies) would stay down and we'd be up the top - too tired to clown our bodies glowed (a warm contentment brewed) burnt backs nor aching legs could pop that mood (3) i lay in bed one day my joints subsiding lost in a day-dream rhythmed by my heart medicine-time (a pleasure not abiding) i did my best to play the sleeping part then at my back a nurse's rustling skirt a bending breeze (all breathing held in check) and then she blew sweet eddies down my neck the nurse (of all) whose presence turned the winter to summer's morning (cool before the sun) who touched the quick with such exquisite splinter the wince was there but no great hurt was done she moved like silk the finest loom had spun the ward went dark when she was gone or late and i was seven longing to be eight that whispering down my spine by scented lips threw wants and hopes my way that stewed my mind a draught drunk down in paradisal sips stirred passages in me not then defined at three i'd touched the grail with fingers blind to heart-ache - this nurse though first described the gates to elysium where grown-up love pupates but soon a cloud knocked pristine sex aback (i had to learn the hard way nothing's easy) i went my own route off the sanctioned track and came distraught - in fact distinctly queasy without permission (both nonchalant and breezy) i sailed from bed to have a pee (or worse) and got locked in - and drew that nurse's curse not only hers but all the fussing staff's for daring such a voyage in my state whose heart just then was not a bag of laughs did i not understand the fist of fate that waited naughty boys who could not wait thunderous gods glared through the quaking panes a corporate wrath set back my growing pains forget the scented lips the creeping bliss of such a nurse's presence on my flesh locked in i'd been an hour or more amiss they thought i'd done a bunk or slipped the leash when found i'd gone all blue like frozen fish those scented lips discharged their angry bile and cupid's dart fell short a scornful mile come christmas day the christmas tree was bright its mothering arms held glittering gifts for all and i was seven longing to be eight and i was given a large pink fluffy ball my spirit shrank into the nearest wall true love reduced to this insulting gimcrack my pumped-up heart was punctured by a tintack
(roundel: variation of the rondeau consisting of three stanzas of three lines each, linked together with but two rhymes and a refrain at the end of the first and third group) 1. the blind rose today's fullness is tomorrow's gone (the next day after no one knows) last year's dream now feeds upon what blindly grows imagine if you like a rose on which no likely sun has shone a darkness chokes it (just suppose) the die though's cast - a marathon of hopes endeavours then bestows dawn's right to spill its colours on what blindly grows 2. squeaking there are so few words left now to grow green on - my vocabulary's stumped for a hard-edged phrase to let you know my truth's not been gazumped love itself of course is blandly thumped each time it suits you to imagine no fruits are guilty for their being scrumped if you can't be honest with me - better go if dumped is what you wish then i'll be dumped excuse me if i go on squeaking though my truth's not been gazumped 3. ease of mind the world spins - today i have migraine the peace i seek is never less than ill striving's no answer to the bumptious pain that is love's overspill wanting warmth encourages the chill relaxation breeds its bitter strain the worst of all crimes is - i love you still hope itself by nature is inane i squat in a box dismembered from such will to let me find the ease of mind again that is love's overspill 4. a roundel for ptolemy the earth is not the system's centre- so ok heliocentric - well our sun's a midget spawning galaxies blow our minds away space then equal to a digit the mightiest telescope's a widget science at best hard guessing gone astray no genius stretch beyond a second's fidget ptolemy discarded yet may have his say infinity takes a hologram to bridge it each shard of us contains the cosmos - space then equal to a digit 5. reflection everything you do is my reflection the hurts you cause are my pain inside out blame's no matter for a close inspection your guilt turns mine about love itself is many hands of doubt it cannot be without it breeds rejection its silences result in one big shout i am left with nothing but dejection what's gold in me has nowhere to get out love's pride is fatal to correction my guilt turns yours about 6. the round the round understands the fluidity of order how the thing lit up and the shadow can't compete how the centre is that version of the border the moment makes complete notice each face around a space at times replete with insights given to no one else as warder but not condemned when those insights retreat impermanence is eternity's recorder - with an intricate sense of pattern power can't delete the round honours those cracks in the divine disorder the moment makes complete 7. the actor acting is not the true self's dissipation but not its preening either - outside the role it honours it best fights shy of reputation - being what prometheus stole it is a distant spark of that first live coal a conscious glimpse of human desperation rekindled as a longing to console the waning spirit or the shattered dedication actors are allies of the delphic hole for good or ill they echo human expectation being what prometheus stole 8. roundels in honour of the round (i) when energy was born it asked this question which way dear parents do i go from here mum fluttered indifferently (i blame exhaustion) dad pointed with his sexual gear so energy thrust straight ahead and fostered fear at once its dreaded source became a bastion too holy to be doubted - mum flipped a gear she sought revenge on dad for his lewd suggestion taking too long of course - things went nuclear the scale of the damage was too much to ingest when dad pointed with his sexual gear (ii) she sat with her flowing skirt spread out on the earth and tore the garment into strips from toe to waist laying them to point around the wide world's girth my way the truth flows best dad laughed his head off at the pointless waste and energy itself was seized by powerful mirth perhaps mum's petalled skirt was not well placed in time mishandled plenty breeds its dearth dad's roisterous one-way-ism was disgraced energy began to sense what mum was worth her way the truth flows best
it began as a secret desire (an itch in the marrow too vague to get through to the bone) an idea that never could make it as flesh - there wasn't a part of me sane i could tell that would have spared it a breath to get started so i slept one midday i woke up with a bang - light was bashing in through the windows and suddenly out of my pores sprang this fully-fledged practical paeon this triumphant brass-note of praise for a why-hadn't-i-yelled-it-before sort of answer to my life's rubbing-out of my dreams i’ll jump from the window (i sang to myself) and i'll fly and be damned to daft icarus i crowed and i flew - or i fled (which is very much the same grain of word and it graciously covers the gap between the experience i had in my head and the one i met rushing up from the ground where the glasshouse splashed around to reflect me as i passed on my way down to earth and the squirt of my dad's best tomatoes and my mum's angry mask of a face that just wasn't brought up to be fruitful) so i fled - or i flew - out the gate up the street till i melted just like that daft icarus before me and i thought well why the sod not so i jumped in a pond till i cooled and the blood from a scratch on my hand turned the green water red but not a thick peasant came to be in on the wonder and i had to go home soaking wet to a tongue that had blisters and a belt round the head from my dad - but i lived which is more than daft icarus did
from late december onwards the day comes back but not till february do we see those glimpses that let us take deep darkness off the rack and shake it free of lethargy that cramps us through those dim months we’re made amanuensis to what loud rain and bitter spells dictate we seek bed early and must get up late long january’s puffing in the right direction but its early mornings keep that midnight feel it still is subject to the date’s dejection but once it’s over – see how light can steal through cracks of trees and curtains - beneath the keel of the eastern skyline (rocking like a boat surprised so early to find itself afloat) and from the earth presentiments are rustling as cheeky snowdrops hoist their periscopes within a week a mass of them is bustling and white becomes the flavour of the slopes and people flock invigorating hopes seasons (they say) have forfeited effect on one snowdrop-look and instantly dejection is whipped (though biting winds and brooding skies) away from the pure white cream the eyes are lapping a frisson blooms as every bloodstream tries to come to terms with its own natural sapping and from the earth reorganise that mapping that reaches out to plot those far endeavours a spirit yearns for (wishing its forevers) so walk away – no spread of simple flowers can change the limitations we must live with snowdrops come and go – our fickle powers play havoc with the talents we can thrive with it’s just that february comes and lo - forthwith for one brief snowdrop moment there’s a blaze that lights the world up with its splash of praise