Let slip my mind to hills, which cry out, ‘Country!’At Swanley, plastic bottles flood the verge.Ferns curl — copper shavings shroud detritus; Detritus which is swept and then ignored. The train leaps a road and on that bridge I’m dying.My flesh and blood diverges from the whole,Caught by tunnels, pinioned by dour darkness.In distant hills, …
Brown bodies smudge the furrowed land.They are of it, clustering the brow. The sight deceives: makes one believe inA nervated earth.
An author I like describes writing as child’s play, meaning:Stories he wove in the creche are worth real money, meaning:His hallucinations are printed and bound. An author I like has a wife who helps out occasionally.He composed a dedication to her sanguinity.It’s sweeter than I can stand. ‘Comparison is the slow immersion of the soul …
Snowdrops speckle the yard.Lambs scatter. Sun slants.They whiten the whispering green.These prophets of lifeAlight on the earth. You blink,Overawed at the scene.
Palm me, As you would a coin. Let me slide behind your wrist, All hush and quiet — Covered, While the Assembly Room roars: ‘Where are those ragged bones, Lazy and lousy?’ ‘Gone. All gone,’Is my retort —Alive with secret, Self-satisfied thought. Gone to ground… Gone under cloth… Gone against the grain Of her body… …
Imagine the wayThe dog darkenedSlipping beneath the staticOf night-time wood. Oxleas Wood, past-nine, Fuzz-flooded. Formless,But suggestively grey. ImagineArriving home, my sister (visiting)Stoking a voice on speakerphone. ‘I saw your dog… Mistaken… Sure. Moonlight swept the hall…Soaked the rug.’
There’s a toddler out thereswinging mitts on strings —store-bought woollen pendulathat shatter water — I can’tfathom the mystery northe malice of it — hedisturbs the peace withextended grasp andwithout frowning adultsstepping forward three geese rear upand snap —not biting buthissing venom(funny howin springtimethey were yellow — a mild cycle suffered scantly if at all —allowing …
Board like an ape,chewing on my chinon the slow train; face sky like a net,hauling clouds to groundfor my spear; and the night is an oil slick,a real pit of traffic, so I crab-walk — to where the windows of my houseare the windows of my house, and my key fits. That’s business.
Spreading cross-sections of engineers:The way we move.Thumbing the cratered cheeks of farmers:The way we feed.Stroking the silken shorts of fighters:The way we lust. The heat-blood-toilOf Thomas Hart BentonFloods this chamber. Twelve panels’ worth of big-letterVISION: Black sows, white cotton,Steel ships, electric cities,Soda fountains of jazz and money, Furnaces jewelled with sweatAnd carbon. Drink it dry. …
make my ears bleed baby scream yerself raw and sickpour your woes into my holesbring it fast and thick make my ears bleed babyplay a savage tuneshred guitars and bang my drumfrom dusk til dawn til noon leave me quiet babytheres a coma that im in a sweptout cell inside my skullbut boy the walls …
