today it is bubbles today it is bubbles
last week it was chain mail
and tomorrow it may be
intricate lacework
ice water and steam
are (not) the same
though you find fish in all of them
and also in flame
*
my last indulgence was a caress
my first to credit intelligence
*
the vicar is not an idiot he is the vicar
idiots are freelance
*
There were terror, envy and greed in him.
Yes, but was he reliable?
*
fonder of the skeleton in my cupboard
than the flesh on her counter
i dexterously accused her of whoredom
and had her whipped to the bone
*
let all your gifts of air unite with the python
*
the rival diagnosticians agree to dissect
*
stony
yes it’s stony
aye it’s stony
but it’s town
*
no man is greater
than his father
was
to have been
*
dumbed
by an overdose of reason
he tackled le monde
the streets held him
till he saw
that tunnels
hid the links
*
they are against war, i hear.
very fine.
but while i will avoid it
like the plague;
i will not avoid it
like the devil
*
north is metal
south is peach
one
fair and stone-hearted
other bloody and Light
HAWKER
Passports to reality !
Passports to reality !
and he actually had
they were clear rounded mouldings of glass
fashioned
to fit the eye
*
like carpeting on marble stairs
your clothes
*
STREET
tara tara
trumpet man
come down our street
next time can
Mum will give us
pennies for you
and we’ll dance
Hole in my Shoe
*
Sweetness coolness health all slumber
Beneath the sheath of the green cucumber.
*
he told me of his talent
while i listened to his whine
a delicate ship, i thought,
to float on such bitter seas
*
pastorelle
trembled apart
tipped mounds
heaped to the hand
goodness opening
ah la
be praised
*
at the bottom of the deepest pit
a baby is fighting a snake
above an engineer phones the owners:
‘Nothing left here but the rats Mr Farthing.
Fill her in’.
*
all the wings of the western world
on a banner of crimson gods
*
when the mandolin plays
on the tabernacle
and the musicians gather
to hear the thin sound
well
rainy clouds stand by
to fill the bowl
*
costly repairs
antique waters
fretted pathways
thin the walks
*
a pity
about the Constituent Assembly
*
melons watery wombs
thousand-birthers
seeds from these tombs
divided and dried:
later, on a lady’s neck –
a string of still lives dyed
*
i am not the sweep
i am your african moustache
*
a hard days’ work lends a man dignity
and he is never out of debt
*
waifs and solitaires
we speed through archways
tumbled for keeps
with only now
for dwelling
an extent of debris
*
– So this is the bathroom. How beautiful you have made it.
– Yes. It had always been my dream
to capture the freshness of a hospital
in my home.
*
always a manufacturer
he deceived lies
into blushing
like surprised virtue
*
why was God not Mum? the kid said
and it was seen he had a devil
*
tampered with
she let her mind go
and covered her ears
only after many men
she got back
her beautifully tuned guitar
not one string
broken
*
FIND
while i was out firefighting
i found a dead deer
roasted
lying like Christmas
near a fresh well
it was a find
and good to eat
and all the better
for the accident
of hunger
*
RELATIONS
who is at ease
with relations?
who has forgiven
the forgotten mishandlings?
few is the word
and giant their name
the rest of us busy
circling our game
*
the last hero wouldn’t give his blood
he said
because the colour of the living
is green
not red
*
LOVE AT FIRST
What the heart sees
is not the other
but a shadow sampling
of the taste of self
*
only to dwell so cunningly
that under and along
comes some temper
of black-white dealings
unsanctioned
by
the will
*
he was always a silky eminence
but to cut on an embrace
was his favourite
quip
*
stoned the god dead
we stoned the god dead
and put together from the bits in our head,
continually,
something called NEW
*
NAILED
the conscience of the organisers
the character of the king
the hebrew people
entreaters
nominators
terribilos
nailed the death mask
to the little naked partitions
of life
*
Relaxation:
it passes for wisdom
in the Lowlands
*
long live the marigold under my hat
the three fold horn
the double sleeper
and the one whore
*
man is a lance but domestic
buckles and falls ensue
early or late we are fliers
fuelled on earth home and sleep
*
MEET
she came
all over funny,
fell
for him to catch
and, light in his arms
lay
like a parcel of child
*
certainly the remedy’s
inside the disease
and the meaning of being ill
‘s to bring the eye
to the heart
*
solely to recall you
is my work
sister
sad gamester
fire eaten
*
The fire is put out that threatened the city.
The watchers walk wistful murmuring: ‘Pity’.
*
MEMORY
A little dry leaf
fluttered out of his book.
‘Her name was Griselda.
I loved her. Look.’
*
not my reason
for despair
excess of cruelty
over care
it’s the feel
of many mad mouths
closing empty
*
Are you lonely up there?
I shouted to the man at the top.
‘Bless you, bless you,’ he cried.
‘I didn’t know I could still be seen.’
*
gondoliers?
bloody rococo punts!
*
no one’s hated their mother more
than man
has dug up the earth
*
a rider is dragged to the grave
and his moon’s cut off
it’s not very brave
but what other dark forest do we live in?
*
death is not
a bubble burst
is the sear
that seals
the sphere
*
the last word was evil
the next is Shatter
shatter the monuments to daylight
the work of liberals
and tyrants
and other heroes of fiction
*
sparks and spray strike your feet
when the powers meet
when the powers meet
heavy water and dark glass
melt and harden, shift, pass
*
the story is drowning in the terrible river
*
give me a golliwog to love
and i will move the earth
who would a thirdling be
when black makes up the fourth?
*
the world is made of fire
man is a flamethrower
we have learned nothing
*
ROUNDERS
– Why do you boys play tennis so much?
– To overcome the net.
– For the earth is one beneath it
– And with the ball we join the air.
*
the world rolls heavy in space
biassed with blood
*
history torture and love today it is bubbles
last week it was chain mail
and tomorrow it may be
intricate lacework
ice water and steam
are (not) the same
though you find fish in all of them
and also in flame
*
my last indulgence was a caress
my first to credit intelligence
*
the vicar is not an idiot he is the vicar
idiots are freelance
*
There were terror, envy and greed in him.
Yes, but was he reliable?
*
fonder of the skeleton in my cupboard
than the flesh on her counter
i dexterously accused her of whoredom
and had her whipped to the bone
*
let all your gifts of air unite with the python
*
the rival diagnosticians agree to dissect
*
stony
yes it’s stony
aye it’s stony
but it’s town
*
no man is greater
than his father
was
to have been
*
dumbed
by an overdose of reason
he tackled le monde
the streets held him
till he saw
that tunnels
hid the links
*
they are against war, i hear.
very fine.
but while i will avoid it
like the plague;
i will not avoid it
like the devil
*
north is metal
south is peach
one
fair and stone-hearted
other bloody and Light
HAWKER
Passports to reality !
Passports to reality !
and he actually had
they were clear rounded mouldings of glass
fashioned
to fit the eye
*
like carpeting on marble stairs
your clothes
*
STREET
tara tara
trumpet man
come down our street
next time can
Mum will give us
pennies for you
and we’ll dance
Hole in my Shoe
*
Sweetness coolness health all slumber
Beneath the sheath of the green cucumber.
*
he told me of his talent
while i listened to his whine
a delicate ship, i thought,
to float on such bitter seas
*
pastorelle
trembled apart
tipped mounds
heaped to the hand
goodness opening
ah la
be praised
*
at the bottom of the deepest pit
a baby is fighting a snake
above an engineer phones the owners:
‘Nothing left here but the rats Mr Farthing.
Fill her in’.
*
all the wings of the western world
on a banner of crimson gods
*
when the mandolin plays
on the tabernacle
and the musicians gather
to hear the thin sound
well
rainy clouds stand by
to fill the bowl
*
costly repairs
antique waters
fretted pathways
thin the walks
*
a pity
about the Constituent Assembly
*
melons watery wombs
thousand-birthers
seeds from these tombs
divided and dried:
later, on a lady’s neck –
a string of still lives dyed
*
i am not the sweep
i am your african moustache
*
a hard days’ work lends a man dignity
and he is never out of debt
*
waifs and solitaires
we speed through archways
tumbled for keeps
with only now
for dwelling
an extent of debris
*
– So this is the bathroom. How beautiful you have made it.
– Yes. It had always been my dream
to capture the freshness of a hospital
in my home.
*
always a manufacturer
he deceived lies
into blushing
like surprised virtue
*
why was God not Mum? the kid said
and it was seen he had a devil
*
tampered with
she let her mind go
and covered her ears
only after many men
she got back
her beautifully tuned guitar
not one string
broken
*
FIND
while i was out firefighting
i found a dead deer
roasted
lying like Christmas
near a fresh well
it was a find
and good to eat
and all the better
for the accident
of hunger
*
RELATIONS
who is at ease
with relations?
who has forgiven
the forgotten mishandlings?
few is the word
and giant their name
the rest of us busy
circling our game
*
the last hero wouldn’t give his blood
he said
because the colour of the living
is green
not red
*
LOVE AT FIRST
What the heart sees
is not the other
but a shadow sampling
of the taste of self
*
only to dwell so cunningly
that under and along
comes some temper
of black-white dealings
unsanctioned
by
the will
*
he was always a silky eminence
but to cut on an embrace
was his favourite
quip
*
stoned the god dead
we stoned the god dead
and put together from the bits in our head,
continually,
something called NEW
*
NAILED
the conscience of the organisers
the character of the king
the hebrew people
entreaters
nominators
terribilos
nailed the death mask
to the little naked partitions
of life
*
Relaxation:
it passes for wisdom
in the Lowlands
*
long live the marigold under my hat
the three fold horn
the double sleeper
and the one whore
*
man is a lance but domestic
buckles and falls ensue
early or late we are fliers
fuelled on earth home and sleep
*
MEET
she came
all over funny,
fell
for him to catch
and, light in his arms
lay
like a parcel of child
*
certainly the remedy’s
inside the disease
and the meaning of being ill
‘s to bring the eye
to the heart
*
solely to recall you
is my work
sister
sad gamester
fire eaten
*
The fire is put out that threatened the city.
The watchers walk wistful murmuring: ‘Pity’.
*
MEMORY
A little dry leaf
fluttered out of his book.
‘Her name was Griselda.
I loved her. Look.’
*
not my reason
for despair
excess of cruelty
over care
it’s the feel
of many mad mouths
closing empty
*
Are you lonely up there?
I shouted to the man at the top.
‘Bless you, bless you,’ he cried.
‘I didn’t know I could still be seen.’
*
gondoliers?
bloody rococo punts!
*
no one’s hated their mother more
than man
has dug up the earth
*
a rider is dragged to the grave
and his moon’s cut off
it’s not very brave
but what other dark forest do we live in?
*
death is not
a bubble burst
is the sear
that seals
the sphere
*
the last word was evil
the next is Shatter
shatter the monuments to daylight
the work of liberals
and tyrants
and other heroes of fiction
*
sparks and spray strike your feet
when the powers meet
when the powers meet
heavy water and dark glass
melt and harden, shift, pass
*
the story is drowning in the terrible river
*
give me a golliwog to love
and i will move the earth
who would a thirdling be
when black makes up the fourth?
*
the world is made of fire
man is a flamethrower
we have learned nothing
*
ROUNDERS
– Why do you boys play tennis so much?
– To overcome the net.
– For the earth is one beneath it
– And with the ball we join the air.
*
the world rolls heavy in space
biassed with blood
*
history torture and love
come out of an egg
*
CONFESSIO
‘I put the peas in Galileo’s telescope’
*
the scene of the crime
was a goldfish bowl
goldfish were kept
in the bowl at the time
that was the scene
and that was the crime
*
– Years of work went into this, I suppose?
-1 don’t know I found it in the buckets.
come out of an egg
*
CONFESSIO
‘I put the peas in Galileo’s telescope’
*
the scene of the crime
was a goldfish bowl
goldfish were kept
in the bowl at the time
that was the scene
and that was the crime
*
– Years of work went into this, I suppose?
-1 don’t know I found it in the buckets.
last week it was chain mail
and tomorrow it may be
intricate lacework
ice water and steam
are (not) the same
though you find fish in all of them
and also in flame
*
my last indulgence was a caress
my first to credit intelligence
*
the vicar is not an idiot he is the vicar
idiots are freelance
*
There were terror, envy and greed in him.
Yes, but was he reliable?
*
fonder of the skeleton in my cupboard
than the flesh on her counter
i dexterously accused her of whoredom
and had her whipped to the bone
*
let all your gifts of air unite with the python
*
the rival diagnosticians agree to dissect
*
stony
yes it’s stony
aye it’s stony
but it’s town
*
no man is greater
than his father
was
to have been
*
dumbed
by an overdose of reason
he tackled le monde
the streets held him
till he saw
that tunnels
hid the links
*
they are against war, i hear.
very fine.
but while i will avoid it
like the plague;
i will not avoid it
like the devil
*
north is metal
south is peach
one
fair and stone-hearted
other bloody and Light
HAWKER
Passports to reality !
Passports to reality !
and he actually had
they were clear rounded mouldings of glass
fashioned
to fit the eye
*
like carpeting on marble stairs
your clothes
*
STREET
tara tara
trumpet man
come down our street
next time can
Mum will give us
pennies for you
and we’ll dance
Hole in my Shoe
*
Sweetness coolness health all slumber
Beneath the sheath of the green cucumber.
*
he told me of his talent
while i listened to his whine
a delicate ship, i thought,
to float on such bitter seas
*
pastorelle
trembled apart
tipped mounds
heaped to the hand
goodness opening
ah la
be praised
*
at the bottom of the deepest pit
a baby is fighting a snake
above an engineer phones the owners:
‘Nothing left here but the rats Mr Farthing.
Fill her in’.
*
all the wings of the western world
on a banner of crimson gods
*
when the mandolin plays
on the tabernacle
and the musicians gather
to hear the thin sound
well
rainy clouds stand by
to fill the bowl
*
costly repairs
antique waters
fretted pathways
thin the walks
*
a pity
about the Constituent Assembly
*
melons watery wombs
thousand-birthers
seeds from these tombs
divided and dried:
later, on a lady’s neck –
a string of still lives dyed
*
i am not the sweep
i am your african moustache
*
a hard days’ work lends a man dignity
and he is never out of debt
*
waifs and solitaires
we speed through archways
tumbled for keeps
with only now
for dwelling
an extent of debris
*
– So this is the bathroom. How beautiful you have made it.
– Yes. It had always been my dream
to capture the freshness of a hospital
in my home.
*
always a manufacturer
he deceived lies
into blushing
like surprised virtue
*
why was God not Mum? the kid said
and it was seen he had a devil
*
tampered with
she let her mind go
and covered her ears
only after many men
she got back
her beautifully tuned guitar
not one string
broken
*
FIND
while i was out firefighting
i found a dead deer
roasted
lying like Christmas
near a fresh well
it was a find
and good to eat
and all the better
for the accident
of hunger
*
RELATIONS
who is at ease
with relations?
who has forgiven
the forgotten mishandlings?
few is the word
and giant their name
the rest of us busy
circling our game
*
the last hero wouldn’t give his blood
he said
because the colour of the living
is green
not red
*
LOVE AT FIRST
What the heart sees
is not the other
but a shadow sampling
of the taste of self
*
only to dwell so cunningly
that under and along
comes some temper
of black-white dealings
unsanctioned
by
the will
*
he was always a silky eminence
but to cut on an embrace
was his favourite
quip
*
stoned the god dead
we stoned the god dead
and put together from the bits in our head,
continually,
something called NEW
*
NAILED
the conscience of the organisers
the character of the king
the hebrew people
entreaters
nominators
terribilos
nailed the death mask
to the little naked partitions
of life
*
Relaxation:
it passes for wisdom
in the Lowlands
*
long live the marigold under my hat
the three fold horn
the double sleeper
and the one whore
*
man is a lance but domestic
buckles and falls ensue
early or late we are fliers
fuelled on earth home and sleep
*
MEET
she came
all over funny,
fell
for him to catch
and, light in his arms
lay
like a parcel of child
*
certainly the remedy’s
inside the disease
and the meaning of being ill
‘s to bring the eye
to the heart
*
solely to recall you
is my work
sister
sad gamester
fire eaten
*
The fire is put out that threatened the city.
The watchers walk wistful murmuring: ‘Pity’.
*
MEMORY
A little dry leaf
fluttered out of his book.
‘Her name was Griselda.
I loved her. Look.’
*
not my reason
for despair
excess of cruelty
over care
it’s the feel
of many mad mouths
closing empty
*
Are you lonely up there?
I shouted to the man at the top.
‘Bless you, bless you,’ he cried.
‘I didn’t know I could still be seen.’
*
gondoliers?
bloody rococo punts!
*
no one’s hated their mother more
than man
has dug up the earth
*
a rider is dragged to the grave
and his moon’s cut off
it’s not very brave
but what other dark forest do we live in?
*
death is not
a bubble burst
is the sear
that seals
the sphere
*
the last word was evil
the next is Shatter
shatter the monuments to daylight
the work of liberals
and tyrants
and other heroes of fiction
*
sparks and spray strike your feet
when the powers meet
when the powers meet
heavy water and dark glass
melt and harden, shift, pass
*
the story is drowning in the terrible river
*
give me a golliwog to love
and i will move the earth
who would a thirdling be
when black makes up the fourth?
*
the world is made of fire
man is a flamethrower
we have learned nothing
*
ROUNDERS
– Why do you boys play tennis so much?
– To overcome the net.
– For the earth is one beneath it
– And with the ball we join the air.
*
the world rolls heavy in space
biassed with blood
*
history torture and love
come out of an egg
*
CONFESSIO
‘I put the peas in Galileo’s telescope’
*
the scene of the crime
was a goldfish bowl
goldfish were kept
in the bowl at the time
that was the scene
and that was the crime
*
– Years of work went into this, I suppose?
-1 don’t know I found it in the buckets.