39. Even When We Err

Veronica Very: what’s this one, mama?
               Munching Monsters & Sewer Critters
               Oh yes, you will accept all &
               it will all be full of memories
               for things start & stop
               even for blue talking horses
              (he didn’t tell you I was a mare?
               well, he wouldn’t, would he not at all
               and, well, what I’m writing is up to me
               not mine but of me, a folk memory
               that disordered feast, full of wonder
               time to work, to make ourselves younger.

Herei II: ktissueu!
          – count me in with that
          Gosh, it will go through at the deal
          ant vapour – ah yes, formless but formic
          & the intensity of tomatoes, them
          love apples, and so much to drench ourselves with
          excuse me, gosh, I may be mandarin but
          O woe, woe, woe! for me this it
          I’m staying & I’m nabbing & I’m knowing.

Pauline: It’s not complicated, like
         living in a village.
         Everyone’s outside me
         I don’t care: oh
         my top stories cut
         here in my head
         illuminated like a custom gaming case
         – succour not an issue –
         close attention, care & children
         all of them, oh all ourselves
         lit in what we improvise
         even when we err.

32. “The poet fears mental institutions”

The poet fears mental institutions
will risk getting soaking wet to escape
familiar problems he leaves absolutely open
future scholars delight

Fellow poets are winnowed into nothing
refusal is fun – we’re all
starting to realise
how laughter will let us now go

Children in the coffeebar – take it
over & over again
they learn slowly but inexorably
their language just unpredictable & cruel

Dreams deny desire
solved in the land of the imaginary
sibilance strutting suddenly in peacock colours
be delicious, OK, then much more real

26. The Sudden Appearance of Foxes in the Darkness of Night Shocked Her Deeply

We:
choose something horrible
must sit at the edges
are smeared with a past
filthy as cake
regretted w/ everything
don’t know what is
learn very slowly
to hide inside possessions
abase ourselves to power
dream of many things
that may not happen
don’t trust
or like this world
– how can we
change it?

A Dog:
doesn’t regret
knows what is
even
hacked off head
knows what is
yet still
abased to power

Hate:
bubbles & flourishes
fuels & propels
gets caught up & sticks
– scratch off
w/ brambles

Children:
don’t realise
don’t clean
don’t hate
– where are we all
this early autumn sun?

The Stories:
scars & repetition
grand natural process
what comes after
unfilled voids appear
mean nothing
spore, bubble to flourish
tend into dreams
all about children
tell us
what action is
what words
can do
filling these voids

19. Where Poetry Now Includes the Weather

We & I – let’s swim into this house
         and have a bath, swiftly
         everything spills, every one
         embrace this feast
                            – we feed
         each other’s faces
                            all summer long
                            delicious too
                            our ecosystem

Things get sooty & disordered
Who wouldn’t blame the
Old generation then?
– Richard: oh, what of succour?
  Rita: adorable source of worthless order
  Gilda: cannot calm the dawn
  Glenn: doing his grunties, again
  Adrian: tutor mainly to shingle is wasted blasphemy
  Stella: helpful, salty & built of old bricks
  La Vedette Atomique: oh my friend
                       the dark vapours break
                       whatever we improvise
                       dust & voices
                       speckled w/ grey drops
                                   memory

Make a ritual of this now
The shock of utter events
Will break our silence
Hour by hour
             – rearrange all this
                             thus: