55. Fault Code Readings No. 2

Winter inimical & turbid – its scars
remain after, stories to commemorate our flight
minimal markers to show where we veered to
danced out of the future planned for us.1

So we’ll sing this again – to summon
who we are & should be in clear air
like wine, like anything that nourishes
swinging away husks of ancientest corruption.2

 

 

1 one of absolute commitment to those who know better & ably direct all things

 

 

2 cross reference examples of “emergence of high status elites” across all archaeological journals

54. Enochian Translation No.1

Enochian translation No 1

All these things are held in here ready to ripen
to fly off free like a god or delusion into the mountains
whence may come our aid because we believe in this or
just gravity rolling down – ah, dear momentum
you can be extraordinary if we summon our speed & our daring
sidestepping how they will block us – oh something peregrine & vagrant
we’ll sweep beside & over them, trust then to our formlessness
& improvise our pleasure. Well, alright then, let’s hope
& spring out, joyous as kitsch and irresistible
there are no lines to hold nor commitments to resolve
except the flight of human liberty, the flock of us
all diving out of the sun. Hold on this please
we have wandered long to reach here from
Tottenham through Broadstairs to Hardanger Vidda lakeside
hiding amongst the reindeer & prostrate willows, bare stones
that remain for millennia. The air is clear
we reform & blend – wilderness like wine, pristine heights
cheering, sustaining. Let us write what we feel &
what we have found out amongst ourselves now and
lay it out in full despite of the self-chosen elite – no
recognition of their statuses & rights, oppose separation
refusal to live on the common basis of all other beings
hoarding up capital, laws, propaganda & guns like
dung beetles.

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.

47. Taking the Royal Road (that’s free to all)

the power of dreams
                    against
 the dream of power
 

it was the day
when the cats went out to settle all the fate of the world between themselves
then went back in & tried to tell us
 

flesh isn’t gendered
only intent
 

once we all had the same name
now every name is different
 

“Large figures, dressed in white, were conventional types of divinity, but they bore no signs of personality, and unless they spoke, the question of identity was left open. Even when they did speak, they could not be expected to be direct . . . usually, they gave hints and riddles.”

Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians: in the Mediterranean world from the second century AD to the conversion of Constantine (Penguin, 1988) p 158

 

Thank those gypsies w/ their tambourines
or no one’ld ever have left their home
 

floating down out of the mountains
attention to circumstances
will become delicious
 

shriek & french & italian
– any language but this!
 

“Als wie ein Ruhetag, so ist des Jahres Ende,
Wie einer Frage Ton, daß dieser sich vollende,
Alsdann erscheint des Frühlings neues Werden,
So glänzet die Natur mit ihrer Pracht auf Erden.”

Hölderlin (signed Scardanelli), “Der Winter”, in ed. Michael Hamburger, Hölderlin (Penguin Books, 1961), p 259

 

“We ran, silently, from the grey-green pathways of the mountain pass into the quiet, colourless streets of the city. We sought out friends. We had wandered, maddened and goaded, for all our lives it seemed: now to dwell and live and again to build.”
An old couple, tenderly hand in hand, had sung this song.

46. Slippy Sloppy Doodah (from another vagrant song)

Here we are with the gypsy girl
an inspired study I will say
simplicity should flourish best
in some paradise of painters

Inside this landscape, foxes
are our sympathies not with them?
they forage underneath the messy sky
not abased by the wound of loveliness

Guys & girls & bishops
all you vagrant utopians veering
heroic as fucking gasoline
without single-mindedness or status

No pressure; exclude pursuit; open
oh, open now!
bold & childlike inconsistencies
just life inside this void

Together maybe we demonstrate the imprecise
our appearances not adequate yet nonetheless
somehow to shine, a fire of faggots
presented in a sorry field
spat upon in destitution’s calling