Category: quatrains

48. & All the Silver Geckoes. . . 1

what do they dream of
we’re crossing the line now
to improvise power
briefly against or for

do they know more than the cats
leaping across the fenceways
a whole new geography
superior to our own

does our flesh know
accepting its comfort
whatever really
it might sleep after

we give to all vagrants
one single name
but every name different
every one so

like the gods much the same
all you’d imagine
centreless & white
then clear as a mirror

any escape will do
to get us outside
we blame & we love
out into wildwood

escaping like people
just denying this nightmare
let’s see what it is
really around us

the words are our wonder
yes we can learn
wander into these schools
& understand what is said

the year ends and
we’ll see then through vapours
the first glimmers
a new fragrant tone

our age doesn’t matter
does it Karla & Darrel
tenderly hand in hand
oh, this city now is ours

 

 

1 Crossing (or Xing) the Line reading series, organised by Jeff Hilson (with Sean Bonney), held, at the time of writing, upstairs in The Apple Tree, Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell – the room redecorated in the summer of 2013 with a gorgeous wallpaper, black with silver lizards, as background for the poets (plus photos of Marx & Lenin – for the benefit of CWU meetings also we guess). Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/140494812663758.

33. Speak Easy

Let’s talk about familiar things
unconstrained & exhilarated how we go
letting things write clear
after all that splashing about

no one can do this alone
it’s a matter of rushing together
oh dear little kitsch of dancing through
bound together now w/ laughter

we have at last learnt this is a cruel world
and we swim within polluted language
constructed carefully to keep us down
– OK then, children, let’s smash it all

what do dreams do? their joy corrosive
to the big conceptual mess – oh yes to
ordinary mongrel colours, nothing high end
but delicious too, then much more real

27. Filling These Voids with Foxes

“the fox some bounding shape
it made me feel dirty all over
like when you accept all circumstances
and agree to the continuance of power”

“remember the bloody head of the dog
stuck on a stake in the Midlands someplace
seen from the car as a curse
young & unaware of all our abasement”

“it ran into the brambles I think
enjoying its delicious games
bubbling off into memory now
like the symbol for utter astonishment”

“like the strange close attention of children
their concerns locked in comfortable unconcern
don’t you know school starts tomorrow
to stop you leaping like foxes?”

these are stories to tell about the self
and you – also scars then an unfolded universe
ungracile & bloody peculiar filling
something dark outside themselves
                                  I dream

17. How Comes It Then

Out of need maybe in lack
of adequacy but no sudden entry
don’t we always just accept then
these circumstances for full slavery?

Each time, each time I tell you
we accept the natural right of rulers
we thrust ourselves into darkness
a world of no colour or light

As the sun sparkles we must
build up into some true many
rejoicing in diversity & need to
help eachother live into this light

And darkness – any intensity of purpose
purely against what the few lay claim to
that world of random murder, constant hate
in which we feed upon the bodies of the weak

The predators take off & thrive
on the tolls we pay for air & earth
these circumstances not of our own choosing but
each day of acceptance shall be our blame

OK, then, summer, & it’s delicious
but waiting on the beach for due attention
won’t get us anywhere – get a pen, all
the unbroken instruments of this world to write

Don’t care if it’s too personal, don’t
care if just impersonal, least said
but be the best & most perfected
open to all our pleasing games

Swimming, like that good god1, with-
in the world with which world we are all in
-volved, supported say by all its gaiety & mess
no fuss, no, but being here one evening

You can go on, to flourish
in this deep summer where the warmth
tends this world now – not distant
& not sad:
           but here

Where the earth is filled with slaves, yes
& despots’ weeds crunch out the ecosystems
abased & prostrate, no, needn’t be
stripped to our rich bodies we shall live here
                                               to swim
                                               in summer light
                                               & hide in
                                               its darkness too

 

 

 

 

 1  you remember? – the unknown one?

6. Mix and Bake: for Benefits

also for Tom Bamford & Steve Willey, the instigators of Benefits

We grow into the power of the dead
until we become them. Let’s bake cake
Let’s tend children & fine blossom
Each time the measurements we make, OK

Hopeful to begin, inconspicuous here
then suddenly mix! Yeah, yeah
it’s what he learnt you learn
Poetry appearing on a wire rack

Good to drink beer with
That cellar
too dank & alive! A piety to
those who deserve it is true filiation
Something opened to carry on as does

With care, concern, consciousness
what’s good can flourish
Never mind
that melancholy badmouth dichotomy
mix & bake then, Tom & Steve