100. Never Naive Enough 1

That’s it then, yes, time
drop everything & rummage
time in a bubble different
it’s not what you need – no
outbreaks of tapirs & bards
we need utopian noise
hey, let’s invent music now

All these new solidarities
can’t life be simpler
                      if loneliest
no no no – it’s a lovely process
improvise the magic to achieve illumination
everyone together who’s that naïve
show your voice to join with ours as if you wished2

 

 

1 “Ah well, that’s me told then. The disingenuous old bugger.”

 

 

2 “Exiting, is he not? with a final swish & flounce of the curtains, moth-eaten & dingy as you like. Still, alright, I’ll try & do this too, just to help the old relic out:

92. At Our Back, Disordered Noise:

“children are responsibility, grandchildren our hope”

At our back disordered noise
things get unforgiving here, not helpful
oh children, children, children, are you redeeming
are you collapsing us w/ scarlet rooty-tooting
like the ending of all natural delusions
into need, demand, uncertain laughter
everything changing, yes, into itself & nothing
our bodies’ transformation into tapirs delicious
too much so
            we preserve no possibilities this time

no sense in here, little creatures, no
just infinite hunger & the remains of spittle
our enemies now huge and flaming
“these are ours and therein all that is”
let’s be waving at friends from the future
maybe laughter & perversity make a redeeming couple
glimpses of waterfowl pattering across the quay
what threatens the world will not protect these
only us with what heteroclite fragments
                                        best to use

just typical of this young world
lots of that pudding please
I miswrite here, OK –
like you disordered children
all her smutty fragments
oh Sarah I can’t stand it
just switch attention off the mess
then it’s all about speech
unusable & valueless
                     but a bit familiar to you then

91. A Recipe for Children

for you all

Little noisy children, then, aren’t
you nice?
          – just as you should be, yes
everywhere that we can think of
funny little creatures uncommitted yet
to all that crap we must believe & follow
adult masculine English, say
                             uncertain class & age
what commonplace delusions that you don’t
yet share
          of course now lots
totally fucked up & maybe even lost
but most alive & hopeful still
the future such a grasp of faith
actually here embodied
                       open & illuminating

So what do we need?
                    for more
little children to pass through
                                full
sometimes of life, sometimes of quiet
none of this easy & none of it a recipe
but what we’d need then is something like
                        an openness to your growing lives
                        & a way of adjusting all that is around
                        into your flourishing transformations
                        some sorts of food as varied & as comforting
                        as all that can be managed
                                                   & like too
                        spaces open and enclosed, full up & empty
                        you know, just every possibility
                        – someone1 needs to have produced these
                        & someone needs to carry this all on
                        somewhere to run & someone to turn to
                        softness & feeling totally assured
                        others just like when you’re bibbling & bobbling
                        & others totally unlike so you can learn good things
                                                        – whatever you need
                        time as well, to be on your own
                                                        staying engaged
                        & time to be caught up with others
                                                           a mad laughing mob
                                                           rolling down hills
                                                           little hills
                                                           giggling together
                        & words
                                good words attuned to you
                                           & about you
                                           engaging you in colloquy
                                           engaging you in nonsense
                                a constant gentle rain
                                language softened into mud
                                squidged up & scooped
                                                      all over you
                        & things for your bodies & things
                        for your eyes & things for
                        your ears & nose & your hands again
                        water & sand & mud & stone & wood & paper
                        plastic & metal & everything natural
                        & lots that is unnatural
                                                 stories & love
                                                 music & encouragement
                                                 peacefulness & challenge
                                                 & always
                                                          to listen
                                                          & to respond
                        Chinese feasts & barbecues
                        picnics & Christmas
                                            – all with as many others
                                              as you can gather
                        breakfast at Broadstairs or teatime in Coffee Corner
                        sitting on a sofa w/ everyone around or
                        just as many as fit
                                            on a mat out the back
                                            or even a large cardboard box
– this isn’t telling anyone
anything we don‘t know
                       but
just praising what is good
fall quiet now

Hullo?
       – are you alright?
this place needs noise now
needs everything said again
                            & done
whatever ceremonies are proper
that appear out of nothing
(like this whole ridiculous universe
                                     yes?
                                     & like us)
doing what you do to help the child
                     be what you are
                     & will be
                       a person
                       true person
                       playing yourself
                       as your self
                       just as you are
                       can be

This is
        a revolutionary demand I’d say
        to do this truly & fully
        rushing in as absolute & unforgiving
        like a sundog over Harlow2
        like the digging up of relics
        of who we could have been
        like a poem by Sean Bonney
        like an urgent summons
        on someone else’s phone
                                – oh my god it’s you
                                  that’s who they want
                                  you’re wanted now
                                  to help us all
make this much better
                                  if too late for us
                                  for all our children
                                  & yours for ever3

Thank you – this is
a start again to say
the same words really
(oh thank you constraints of form that chose me!
but I don’t care
                 – for what is good
we can say again & again
with no loss of balance, only
just to do better is a gain
our eyes will burn
unless we open them to this light
of the new world continually around us
utopian hope lurking even in unrented shops
& we risk losing it
letting the old drop onto it
suppressing it into what we are
actually bound here as we are
we think ourselves free still
we carers & we parents
we know that you must be
not as we are4
but as we could be
          should be
in a world that is as it should be
as nothing else will preserve our lives
                                & yours

[So much I must say, so much I must finish with, ending what isn’t a recipe, except as I say it is, disordered as late summer sun collapsing into autumn. We must dig out what we need from it, if we’re to get through the coming winter & you, our children, flourish – rooty-tooting like glad tapirs in an uncomplicated alchemy, changing everything we live within into what will sustain us, especially our children for ever. “Always a good time to rebuild, now,” we say, as we serve you this dish to enjoy & nourish

 

 

1 that is us, dear reader or dear audience

 

 

2 or Mortimer’s Cross or the someone else’s Bridge: cold & luminous anyway

 

 

3 The political is children; the psychological is children. Socialism is children. Everything else is profitable infanticide.

 

 

4 insipid ghosts

90. In the Parental Voice

(Florence Walk, Bishops Stortford, August 4, 2014)

little noisy children here
                           hey stop that shouting!
you are all like bubbles
                         – right?
                                  OK?
then I’ll be back
                  OK then too?
monkey! monkey!
                you’re a monkey too
just
     a little one

 
here come more children
                        passing thru
have a good day tomorrow
                         & say goodbye to Charlie
was that Paulina?
                  or maybe a Sarah
the one
       we used to know?
the process
           falls quiet
                       now

 
well, that
           quick visit to the loo alright
this place
           needs noise now
I stress this
              it’s black
the little bag
               the little shop
bright jewels
              white bread
I’d better
           go the Jackson Square
Florence Walk
              is dead
hullo?
       are you alright?

 
it was
       the little boy’s phone
his brain rots
               rustle! rustle! squelch!
under a cold
             luminous dome
we just
        walk by

 
thank you
          this is a start again
turn out
         then scoff
that was
         love
              ly
pleasure drops
               greatly
                       & infrequently

 
so much
        I must use
thank you
          so much!
simple & sure
              uncomplicated alchemy
beautifully composed
                     on noblest bards
                     utopian princesses
I’d be happy
             I’d embrace
oh, tapirs then
                bring me one
bring me lots
              – they eat
all the kids’ phones
                     all at once
that’s what we use
                   doing the Florence Walk
only the world dreams
                      utopian
hope lurking
             in unrented shops
an insipid ghost
                 worthless &
unridiculous
             at best
schneugh! schneugh!
                    let the tapirs rummage
no place else today

88. Enochian Translation #41

188 estrangelo treated copyNothing solid left to return to – that could be a relief. Everything that has happened is irreversible: it’s to do with entropy, rather than iussive poesis. Maybe the triumph of the bourgeoisie, turning out to be the zombie slaves of our new aristocracy (recte: kleptocracy). It is a return, but to nowhere. Think of it as being in hell forever.

Another thingy ran no process on. And what thingy was that? An improvisation of sorts. It can’t work any simple change: it wants the wonder of utter novelty, where something enters from the outside that isn’t there (they tell us). It is gross, disturbing, static in terms of here – in terms of there, a light, casual, generative verb: oh, to tapir, to gryphon, to bleeding head of a dog on a stick, to bird fly out & off at dawn, this dawn, the one that is now. An utter affront to the cryptic smear of events.

A homeless migrant out of nothing is all we are. There are no rights – only the duty of collaborative action to build ourselves a new home, preferably eternal. We’ve landed here, pushed off the boat, & struggled up through the mud & debris of this beach. The first thing we must do is hold a carnival on the quayside to celebrate we are here. Ignore the rain – rather, enjoy how our lights sparkle & waver. Such now is living.

What natural membranes outside to something? Think of sticky interfaces rubbing against your cheeks. It’s at the breaks & cracks, the splits & mirrorings, that something happens. Involutions of boundary layers establish new dimensions, new modes of being. These events form & multiply – OK? We are penetrated utterly through nothingness. What’s here, not here – what isn’t here haunting us & surrounds us. Time to dance thru the wet streets, each single one.

Always the same abased elements here – we don’t care. All our ideals are based on elaborate fakery – hunh? You want divine revelation? Only human, only ever human. Making it up as we go along – tauromachy upon the strand, incantations in the chambers, prayers & ale within the chapel. Bread of heaven, and the people’s beer. These the only materials we’ve got, here in Albion Street: up through the strait gate, turn left.

Again these brief warped children now. Who will they grow up into? Us, us and you. If you’re resigned to this – OK. Let it all breathe as the wind changes & we accept. A friendly cloud blots out the cruel sun. The children still play their violent games. Whoever survives shall be king; but the slaughterer will be the one remembered. It’s hard work, building a civilisation upon this brutish shore. The record is mainly one of massacres & betrayal: all the old giants, ones who’d helped us, put to death. Very well. Here we are. It’s never the right time or place or language. It’s what it is: one actual moment.

 

 

1 Out of the most vulgar of Old Sogdian, I’m afraid, and a very free rendering indeed. Translations do vary widely, especially as the MS is extremely worn & well-rubbed. There is a major alternative reading following.