Long Rivet Poems

Translation of Eric Mottram’s A Faithful Private 7 with excerpts from “Notes on Poetics” by T. Wignesan

(Note: With this post, I bring to a close EM’s pamphlet collection: Faithful Private, GENERA editions by Colin Simms,...

Read More

Moods oscillate in cadences of peaks and valleys
Music to fractious emotions on greasy dance floors
Mistimed cues of flares smouldering relationships

Angst of redundancy seethes from within as lava
Anger is camouflaged with the cloak of reticence
Ardour suffocated...

Read More

Unquotable quotes: Gals, Dolls, Bitches and Broads – XXXVII

An adulterous couple soon make lying, cheating and downright treachery (not to mention their role as carriers of germs within the orbit of the family) the principal...

Read More

My contingency measure in case of…götterdämmerung

A scenario unfolds
more abominable among
any previous warring factions,
his wicked weltanschauung
charred effigies futilely hung
against regime of brutality
considerably more unbearable
than infestation of fruit flies brung
about courtesy evil monster sprung
shortchanging restless and young.

Seconds...

Read More

Eddy was a very young elephant.  There was much Eddy did not know.  One day, Eddy felt sad and uncertain.  All of his young animal friends had musical ability and played instruments...

Read More

EXFOLIATION, I AM      
 
In my advanced age am I but 
       The castoff--remnants 
Of a vitality that once was and has  been...

Read More

Muscles bulging, sinews stretched, I know this ship inside out.
Every rivet I have pounded is to help me to get out.
This ship is new and will take me, to a life I am desperate for
I...

Read More

Villanelle : The Cricketer’s Hakka : « How’s Zaat ! »

Balls thud into pads bats gloves or whisk past batsmen
At bowler’s end or square leg umpires stare stand
« How’s Zaat ! » yell players game’s...

Read More

When you sort decades of electric cables from that box hidden away

It reminds of disentangling neurons haphazardly fired at random

	It’s a beautiful day and you’re in it among sea saw and hammer


Hundreds of screws in...

Read More

Apparitions of buried memories exhumed with rash eulogies
Arouse dried up tears that ever fail to cleanse the robe of guilt
Arraigning again before the partial jury of tormenting thoughts

Kaleidoscopic filial relationships hypnotize the mind to dumbness
Kamikaze...

Read More

The Last Sacrifice



It plays a piano Grande 
Spiraling
Tones twist soft twistings relentless 
Chimes fluent rolling scarlet scales
Tinkling sacred chorales
From cherubim fingers
Plucked petaled folden harps

Of the ballerina swans mute vocals
I know to her return
I succumb
To the...

Read More

In flower’s noisy popularity
lies it charm for majority,
my fever fleeing when it is detached:
A couple helping that has been mismatched,
To their mouths lifted and delicately kissed
like something just found long missed,
I with a misgiving that...

Read More

'Oh' my Will..!


'Oh' - my Will - surmounting you,
is forever an uphill!
thy wreck my peace,
and let never a moment at ease!

Every pause that thy prop-up, 
and every turn do thy rake-up;
the Will not to do,...

Read More

They gather in their buzzard nests
clustered in dry grey frazzled wastes
steel sticks to walk upon their footsteps
humming with metallic stilts
supported grid on artificial legs
their crude utilitarian structure
hang in groves above the chainsaw stacks

Buzzing across the...

Read More

My memory flashes  back on my most horrific nightmare…

Again, I find myself  in rivet of this excruciating pain
With emaciated body, I totter to my wheelchair 
Holding my paintbrushes and glass paints
Dogged enough to...

Read More

Tendrils of love
draping the page,
all of my anger
tussles a cage


—-


A Shock of light
did rivet to dark,
essence of self
was rent apart


A creeping doubt
crawled into mind,
this mimicking parody
was perceived as kind


Lulled to contentment
that was the charm,
and feeling...

Read More

While everything now is lighted
While everything has thrilling light effects
A long-time companion in the dark has been shortsighted
A gushing firefly light has so much to reflect

A child in this generation can only read from books
The...

Read More

Neck pulsating, close shave shines over whiskers
    Stiff collar pressure, raced anticipation simmers
    Key twist intrigue spurs engine's orange rage 
    Needle throws redline on wide...

Read More

To you
Union is an unwanted monster
Your love is at war
Strife over a small matter
This is your manner
Matrimony should be harmony
Cloud of malice is not like eye-candy
Should be erased as a useless memory
To give a room...

Read More

Two hours before sunset 
My study commence 
To the table n' chair, I rivet 
My green-blue orbs
Trying to absorb 
The itsy-bitsy letters 
printed on the papers 
After one & half hour 
I loose my power...

Read More

And they value the veil of a virgin,
The voice of a nightingale,
A knight’s sword and castle;
O, the beauty of a beholder’s vision!

Now, the mother of all virgins moans
For a virgin valued not,
And the nest of...

Read More

she set a polish to the brass pipes
with a careful hand she worried them
hours like a silent moving contemplation
she worked her way from one end of
the massive machine to the other
knowing every rivet
every dent and...

Read More

Of Life and It's Fever

It's only a frog's step away--
Such a leap forward,
As put forth by a disciple of motion.
Yet the earth spins

Let there be no distraction this day:
No clouds to obscure the sun--
or the...

Read More

for J.C. Alldridge

Flagellant!
Flexor of the Temple's
Flexuous moulded walls
The high reliefs sallying through your
Flaunting fingers
Wrap the holy-comer with your
Invocatory maul
While word of Vedic prayer
Seeps from some steepening Brahmin wall

O stretched bowel of your potted paunch
In perspiration's...

Read More

Original perception
That wave of thought
Just breaking into breath

Eyes awake 
The formative tissue merges
Seeking destiny with each pounding rivet

The sensory system develops 
Highly charged with Nabisco appetites 
As valves open and close filtering 
Shimmering cultural ennui...

Read More