Tag: children

87. They Catch the Shine, That’s All

nothing solid left to return to
another solid left to return to
another thingy left to return to
another thingy ran to return to
another thingy ran no return to
another thingy ran no process to
another thingy ran no process on

another thingy ran no process on
a thingy ran no process on
a thingy dreams no process on
a thingy dreams to process on
a thingy dreams to process nothing
a thingy dreams to outside nothing
a thingy dreams out outside nothing
a thingy dreams out of nothing
a thingy migrant out of nothing
a homeless migrant out of nothing

a homeless migrant out of nothing
what homeless migrant out of nothing
what natural migrant out of nothing
what natural membrane out of nothing
what natural membrane outside of nothing
what natural membrane outside to nothing
what natural membrane outside to something

what natural membrane outside to something
always natural membrane outside to something
always the membrane outside to something
always the membrane abased to something
always the membrane abased to here
always the same abased to here
always the same abased elements here

always the same abased elements here
again the same abased elements here
again these same abased elements here
again these brief abased elements here
again these brief warped elements here
again these brief warped children here
again these brief warped children now

again these brief warped children now
again these left warped children now
again these left lowly children now
again these left lowly return now
again these left to return now
just these left to return now
just these left to return to
just spontaneous left to return to
just ridiculous left to return to
just solid left to return to
nothing solid left to return to

86. Something Now We Can All Agree Upon

oh – all these memories then
pretty sloppy if you want what happened
they catch the shine, that’s all
nothing solid left to return to

no – not one thing (that
ended – just another – call it process
yesterday’s landing craft today’s tourism
but they still keep on diving of course

all this huge & thingy world then
a homeless migrant out of nothing
something like spontaneous fireworks
ending up with just what you are

natural language brilliant for fantasies
makes mud smell of nutmeg if we ask
though it may tell us nothing of here
existing too much likewise in its own right

lost on now some ridiculous plane
totally unsure of what is outside (more rain
always the same abased elements here
until the sky & land no longer know what colour

elastic in what? – I’d say warped & rotten
woven up wretchedly on the cheapest of looms
let’s start up again w/ Harlow & fun
gangs of noisy actual children – agreed upon this

85. 3 Poems Answering Possible Questions with Fresh Structures of Feeling & Sensation, and the Assistance of Mr Prynne

• oh – all these memories
                 debris after Lynmouth

                 that was a warning

                                    deliberate mistake?
                                    the Torridge
                                    pretty good, yeah
                                    pretty much
                                                proper country yet

     my father defending it
     during the War
     centre for landing craft
                amphibious assaults1
                entire craft
                lost on the bar
                                thank you
                yankee knowhow

hence we returned
then to Bideford Fair
fire eaters & boxing booths
tigers on posters
how do I know
except what I dream
              – sights
                shining like mackerel
                glorious to engage with
                (when you’re all grown up
                after the dark
                one day to return to

 
• all this
imperfect recall
                 you can’t
                 go there after

                 but perfect
                 conceptions:

                 ah, Jeremy
                 so the night-time:

                 with our eyes closed
                 things come together
                             then happen:

                             sparks & lights
                             veering wildly
                                            burst up

did I see fireworks?
                     do you?

                     a level of abstraction
                  is a level of deprivation

                     what you see
                  is what you are2

 
• lost on the sands at Westward Ho!
                                    again
                                    everyone called Peter
                                    smile and
                                    know nothing

what do you find?
                   dark & dirty
                   muddy depths
                   below it all
                   patches of oil
                   muck &
                   mingled decay

where do we go when we die?

                             can’t be Broadstairs anymore
                             too narrow a path up anyway
                             always traffic jams at the gate

                             just empty drifting
                             down depthward
                             minimal hold

                                           think how slow
                                                     it is
                                                     to be a bubble
                                                     burst

                             down depthward
                             what colour? 3

 

 

1 Remember the armoured ducks?

 

 

2 “natural language itself is generically conceptualised in relation to ‘what there is’, whether ‘real’ or not, elastic in upward dimensionality, almost indefinitely so; and this is especially true of poetic discourse constructions. Within such territory, often separated from lower levels by ascription as ‘in imagination’ or ‘sublime’, an arbitrary text-lexicon can be converted into a distinct vocabulary, and improvised rules for following a narrative or a performance can be formed by modification of lower-order practice, or can be newly invented in their own right.” J.H. Prynne, Concepts and Conception in Poetry (Critical Documents, 2014), p 15

 

 

3 Elastic in downward dimensionality? The poet, like most, wants to go upwards in a burst of light – her or his true path is darkness & destructive transformation. But, you, the reader? Let’s follow Mr Prynne a little further: “A reader may have a demanding task to interpret these ’rules’, but the process may be exhilarating enough to carry the reader forward with strenuous delight: ‘it must give pleasure’ (both Wordsworth and Stevens are agreed upon this).” Prynne, loc.cit. Yes?

81. When Need Met Mud Again (at the Dig in the Woods)

So it is all tender. What accumulated, the opposite of ordinary, made us replete. You know this. The novel elements – some performance! My instincts say: it was the adventurous outsiders, those well-belted ones, their alcohol, their poems, their anxiety. In reality, it is generally found, the horizontal zones appear shorter, whereas particular individuals are represented by more colourful statue menhirs. Offa, David, Anna, the Bretwalda & all the Bishops – just incised decorations. These relics or fragments – yeah, we’re fucked all right, typically so.
 

Their battleaxes, their Bell-Beakers, their well-designed shopping centres – something like a new social reality. It’s not we’re scared of self consciousness, just the radical upheaval it symbolizes. It’s all a textile-like ornament that has transformed us laughing into customers – as if we were tapirs or toddlers, marginal prepositions to understate our ritual life. Our gathering places soon seem stupid, & our appearance jokey as broad bellied pots. This is expressed badly, I fear, crouched & psychotic today.
 

A community could present itself this way. Established values & significant ceremonies have been absorbing dye for 4000 years. Babies are flayed: they whined. This has a dramatic impact. The powerful ones (the hedgies and their thugs) adapted challenging postures. “We are indigenous groups,” they suggested. No impact. Their emotional imagery was complex & uncertain. The trolley-boy epitomized the disadvantaged elements – a dry detail for such an intrusion. That he was twinkly is unexpected, but not unpleasant – the warriors, though, unpredictable, disruptive characters.
 

Yeah, names are noisy. But they are never monofunctional. What they schematically represent may be archaic & largely alien: bone rings, drinking cups, encounters at Starbucks – but their widespread appearance demonstrated not just prominent individuals but ordinary working persons, more mobile populations as a whole. Meadowsweet across the Rhine Delta balances the armoured ducks at the office. Such figures represent not marginal groups or local élites but everyone. Your name is there as well. What a fucking performance! Give me my typical drinking vessel now! This zone is now veiled. Slender numbers to epitomize.
 

In the soft bank of the fragrant
The worst drops backing down –
That they are there!

                  Their earth
Exotic, the strange leaves
Number and the archaic soft things
Think at the grave

                  The rest of it
Displays from their mud
Startling eyes in the small words
They who are there.

                  Their psalms
Nuzzled thru the frauds, the lips that show them
Held in the disorders
Of self

                  The soft names
Casting fact
In this in which the worst drops
Scatter, and start out.

80. Some Questions About These Poems Answered1

(written June 6-9, outside Starbucks & in Sainsburys Café, Jackson Square Shopping Centre, Bishops Stortford)

  • And why shouldn’t it all be tender, as well as what it is? Isn’t it that flayedness to everything which makes us human – otherwise just a mass of instincts & drives, like insects or computers, or the sort of man totally locked within the armour & armature of his own masculinity, blundering ever onwards. That was the plan. This is its opposite.
  • No, of course we can’t say what we’re on, what we’re off. Do you really trust prepositions? Like, they are important – familiar Oppen quotes here – that’s why I use them, but they are so, well, emotional. An off day. Feeling offish. Turning on. All the positioning is internal – inside it/outside it, around it/about it, by it & to it – “get off!” “get on!”
  • And her – who does she think she is? Who does the language think she is? We’re in the shopping centre, the trolley-boy is wheeling his noisy train past, it’s sunny outside, there are dogs & babies & all the rest. Come on (or off) – you’ve been here lots of times, haven’t you? If you haven’t, dear reader, this poem may need additional footnotes to indicate how life is living itself at this point of writing. It’s not difficult. It’s just how it always is. What you actually do inhabit.
  • But we’re insistent – an act of memory concerning her. Within this poem there are many actors, & many may be female. Are they the same? Are they different, separate? Well, all names for a start. You ascribe the gender, I just give words. Each instance could be unique, or a fragment of some multiply diffracted higher reality. Oh fuck! That is out of our control – back in the hands of Offa (you remember? Bretwalda & King of Mercia, then stupid duck joke – kin to Anna, maybe, King of East Anglia & Lord of Essex. They did love those cross-gender names in Dark Age England. We should respect that and enjoy.
  • Rheged
           drops liquid
                 veiled
                            under Elmet
                            before it

    – not Hughes
      but Taliesin
          knowing & prophesying
          did
          actual things
          glamorous in the rainy air
                       the far South
                       may be Rochdale

  • Well, that is so definitely offish – really badly. These adverbs add voice – an unpleasant whine mostly. Occasionally balanced. So — what. We need a half question mark here – named the quesma. You picture it. Go on. Do so.
  • Sometimes, though, the semantics are plain & apparently monofunctional. Take the openplan bank. Modern, friendly, or, “friendly” – but in fact most of the people you encounter working in banks are really nice, so that’s not so much scare quotes as labelling automatic ideologically motivated abuse. Even an office layout can make you feel good. Environmental design works on us as powerfully as language, though with less self-consciousness.2 But the anxiety Dave reported as actual & unexpected – everyone fearful. Someone might come in, armed, & threaten, injure or kill. It could happen. Banks – yeah, yeah, yeah. We know. We do. But an ordinary waged person, dealing with customers at a desk? Do they deserve worse than you? Really?
  • real criminals then
                             – psychotic as hedgies
                               use & abuse
                               not a trade
                               a vocation

                               fucked up to enter3
                               OK but
                               taking your things
                               what you need
                               & have made
                                                   – by force
                                                     or by fraud

    how different then from rulers & other
                               high status elites
                               their hired thugs

                               actual criminals
                               against human law
                                             all of them

  • Yeah! Let this be a positive poem, twinkly as a tapir’s dainty little hooves, unpredictable, ridiculous & true as a performance by Holly Pester, noisy & bubbly as a toddler, unabashed by ideology, fashion & correctness, as friendly to bank workers as to poetic workers, even academic workers, happy to be here today answering your questions,4 & its own questions,5 all questions. Right – who’s next?

 

 

1 & even more raised, we are sure

 

 

2 It falls over if it tries this.

 

 

3 Isn’t that true of all vocations? Priest or poet – who is the more fucked up?

 

 

4 preferably by other questions

 

 

5 always w/ other questions