–

It is calmer now, the night thick with feel;

From this other side of the river, I touch

Contentment – simple, perfect, sullen bliss,

Out of its shell for one fleeting moment,

Which stretches indefinitely onwards,

Indefinitely outwards. Not forward.

Never definite, and not relative.

From here, the haze of other people’s lives

Is one huge panorama, lost in time.

All the confusion blurs and is a drop.

Life decays and only this consciousness,

This sensory barrage, time lost in an eye,

Drags on, smooth and beautiful, like a still.

I do not see or hear, can only feel.

Back on the heavy side, the real side,

Of the river, life goes on like a train:

With direction, and with ends out of sight.

Here, our end is being. I am; you are.

The cynic on the bank of the urbane

Battles the romantic, quite opposite;

The bridges crumble, I cannot return.

: 14 Oct 2009 15:20 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

–

I lament; I rejoice: ‘O bleak, sensual life,’

And drink down bitter-coffee lies,

Paying for food with the proceeds, stolen back

From behind the artificial shop-counter

Of my hypocrisy.

 

I lament; I rejoice: ‘O bored, busy day,’

And complain of no time even to think,

As I indulge the myriad masturbations

Of telepornographic, lurid decay, while

Head sinks deep into gut.

 

I lament; I rejoice: ‘O cold, homely town,’

Whose electric light is as natural to me

As bricks and as money, and, sadly, whose streets,

Already saturated with upturned trolleys and gum,

Were forced to wipe out trees.

 

I lament; I rejoice: ‘O fresh, stagnant day,’

Which sincerely wishes to improve on the last,

But there’s madness in the family, so regrettably

By midday the neuroses have crept out their doors

And are trampling it again.

 

I lament; I rejoice: ‘O weak, wishful self,’

Who sees all this and that it cannot change

Which is false but also sadly earnest

Once masturbation and perpetual light have

Made us all short sighted.

: 14 Oct 2009 15:16 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

–

a human Being of great artistic importance

robbed the chemist’s, at four fifteen;

                                                       but she felt fine,

so threw the four-hundred pounds worth of side effects

into a bin outside - then danced, to be Alive.

 

insofar as cctv evidence was

sure to exist, this was foolish;

                                             but she was wise

and knowing that cctv is no subject

fit for poets’ lines – she danced, to be Alive.

 

a policeman stopped her as she danced about the square,

shuffling uncomfortably at Life;

                                               but she stood still -

except that she held forth a rose, of spotless white,

which, suffocated, fell – the rest is not to tell.

 

a human Being of great artistic importance

was born, like us, in chains – told quietly to survive –

and yet, she danced, to be Alive.

: 14 Oct 2009 15:14 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

–

We drifted through the valley

In a state of disarray

Whilst all the birds above us

Were a mirage sent to warn.

Jove’s very own eagle

The portent of the sky

Warned us then of how

The high lands were ablaze.

But all the signs were mute

For you were on my arm and

We couldn’t see the heat-haze

We couldn’t see at all.

Still we couldn’t come to harm

And we couldn’t feel the flames

While swimming in the tarn

Whilst bathing in the lake.

: 14 Oct 2009 15:12 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

THE SAVAGE FINALLY CRUMBLES IN A HEAP BY THE TOILET

I

(the evening)

 

A singular star shines,

Marking the end of the gradient

From the rosy border of the low trees

To the dimmed azure of the sky’s curved peak.

 

I turn around;

A disproportionate moon casts

An eerie light over the wood’s roof

The green hue of trees’ leaves half discernable in their shadowy forms.

 

The streetlamps just fail

To spoil the serenity of this scene;

The cars’ roars closely miss

Drowning out my awe with their onslaught.

 

Two ways meet, and do battle;

Draw a tense stalemate;

Combat resumes tomorrow,

When destruction’s architects wake to their plotting.

 

 

 

II

(the next morning)

 

Walls and windows: these are not life.

Nor houses, nor roads: mere shadows.

Jaded smiles, blinded miles, these,

These figments are but hoary ghosts:

They are no life, no, not to me.

 

Your sour anguish: no life at all;

Dull, insipid hours of greedy pain:

No life here, darling. You are dead.

Dead, gone, wasted minutes, each

An hour long: Hours fatted of death.

 

Words: these pictures have no life.

Masquerade though they may, they die:

Die before the ink that flowed has dried.

They are not life, and neither are you

Or I, we are dead prostitutes.

 

We sell our bodies and our souls;

We genuflect and beg to satisfy:

Beg to spend twenty ticking years,

To beg to waste forty dreary years,

To beg to retire and die, die, die.

 

This is not life. What is a life?

It must be more; it must be freer.

Dead words tell me how life and death,

They are two. Death even can lie:

This is not life. What here is life?

 

 

 

III

(later on the bathroom floor)

 

Soft-hard sensuality speaks me to myself feelingly

I am saturated

Any movement is bound to crack my seams

Any noise to wrench me from my head

I am not even cold yet

The winter eats comfort from my open palms

Now I am cold in knowledge of my radiator

I cannot stand it I wish it would be raped and slashed

All truly cracked acts though are for us who do not deserve it

These machines are our fault and that they drain us too of our souls of love and of belief of humanity doing our business for us whilst we control them with mechanical hands

Individuals are hard to blame being one vulnerable weak and slightly dead

I hate my PC I wish it was cheap so I might break it but money is holy

Nothing more than this could convince a man (or woman so as not to cause half sincere offence) that I was mad

A witch a heathen a goodfornothing

Tell me I dare you I am not right.

 

I still have a soul and I like to sing

A greater man than I would not care to measure spring.

 

 

 

IV

 

Then the savage

Finally crumbles

In a heap

By the toilet.

 

Thirty minutes

Tick-tock by.

 

His time is expired.

 

The kind traffic-

Warden

Places

The ticket

In his top

Pocket

Sympathetically.

: 14 Oct 2009 15:09 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem