LINKS TO CONTENTS
prophet trousered poetry
surprise encountanka with my aging muse
SENRYU COBBLED FOR FRANKENSTEIN'S POETASTER
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF THE OVERREACHING ARCHER
THE RETURN OF THE BIG BAD TWO-TOED STEREOPHONIC SLOTH
DUSK WOMAN OF THE PRESELI MOUNTAINS
A CELLULOID PARANOID FROM BUNUEL
an unknown walker in a country lane at night
tanka after seeing lorca's play
the contents of an average barrow
A BABY BIRD FOUND DEAD ON THE PAVEMENT
it be t'unemployed grave digger song
SHIP OF DYING BODY ELECTRIC NOTES
surprise
encountanka with my aging muse
the girl draws near me
a soft focus siren as
we meet on the swing
bridge in the harbour
mist
lines
of verse appear on her brow
confusing babble
from live pillars in nature's
temple
he moves through
dense printed trunks of symbols
tracking him with knowing eyes
Through a spidery tear blurred
library window,
Morrab Garden drinks
Her veil of rain
(Juggling emblems yet again,
Sad eyes smudging liquid, coloured inks,
A rainbow alphabet of dragon's teeth).
I form this paper chalice, it contains
A single crystal tear drop from the misty rain's
Soft adorning of the dragon trees beneath
My jewel-cobwebbed window.
[Cornall, Penzance in 1977, the Morrab Gardens,
Autumn]
It is only late spring, and summer has come
Already to Caecob farm. The temperature
In the mid sixties, the hardy earth is dumb
And indifferent to the assaults of rake and spade. Nature
Has exploded the magnolia candles, loaded down
The cherry trees with white blossom clusters.
A willow warbler chirrups.
Out of town
I might learn to shrug my shoulders, when my ego blusters.
Does the poet's persona disappear for good,
Planted in some black hole in space?
A woman gardener caresses a tomato plant,
Stroking its lovelorn leaves. It is understood
By green fingers that plants need tea and massage.
This place
Conjures a glamour from Cuckoo:
"Too true!" the chant!
This country garden is running
wild. I hack
At the weeds and knotted tufted grasses. My tool
Is a mattock, fit for a medieval villein. My back
Complains, but I don't reply.
I lose my cool,
When a gaudy pheasant rockets out of a bush,
An inter-hedgerow missile.
Shocked I need drink!
I go into the kitchen for a glass of cider. As I push
The door open, there's a fluster of wings ...round the sink ...
At the walls...panicking madly at my intrusion, a bird
Flies straight in front of my face and thumps a window.
A redbreast with white speckled belly lies
Jewel-eyed and stiff on the floor.
I suffer an absurd
Guilt for my role in his death: I don't know
Why I live, and the garden robin dies.
5
stage directions for a walkway
dim seated hunched by
doorway as abandoned child
split black garbage bag
4
the aeolian banshee
howling through the frame
of my metal window the
flats sing to themselves
3
staring at a flat wall reflections of window migrants
reflections in my
glasses a flock of birds i
wheel glimpse now they're past
2
the nature of vandalism below the block
lone black boy under
a may tree he strikes with a
stick white blossoms spray
1
love thy neighbour on thy landing
i sleep i wake to
hammering door neighbour screams
1
media distortion
horizontal hold
cannot centre anarchy
tv anarchy
2
discreditable tanka
would you credit it
not without a plastic card
and a regular
salary i'm just a heel
spurned snake in consumer hell
3
clockwork conscience haiku
mechanic soul search
cannot abide a machine
that breaks down with guilt
4
sensuous clapped out cz motorbike haiku
will her piston seize
as i mount her saddle her arse
weighed down with my gear
5
demands of the amalgamated haiku poets and undertakers union in brief
a fair days pay at
the book fair living wage
for a dying art
A H.P.U.U.
fighting for the rights of dead and undead alike!
(OR DEATH OF THE BENEFITS CULTURE)
‘I’d vote for any party that would say, “I won’t allow people to throw garbage all over me”. But none of the parties seem to be particularly interested. That’s why I formed the World Domination League.’
E . L. Wisty
'garbage in, garbage out (hacker's proverb)
I tried to write out my life, but found I'd lost
My Mind. My inmost self had done a bunk:
My Soul had buggered off, and to my cost
Without me in it, my autobiography was sunk,
My Character missing, an eloping monk.
The keys of this typewriter were not mine to rap
The Vaults of my hollow Skull seemed to entrap
The nagging of a Moneybags I'd never want to meet
In a crowded room, or sitting on my lap:
The Invisible Man perched on my Judgement Seat.
'Justice belongs to those who claim it ...' and are tossed
Like stale bread to pigeons, or buns to the trunk
Of a lobotomised Elephant, whom Fate had double-crossed
By cutting out his memory. This computer had drunk
From the River of Death, where all past lives are junk,
Where Fat Cat Greed rots down to slimy crap,
Where Strong Leaders panic where scavengers flap,
The Winner's stink, the Victim's corpse smells sweet
As fresh barned hay before the thunderclap:
The Invisible Man perched on my Judgement Seat.
I searched for my Ego in my mousy flat. I glossed
On laundry, questing the Id, where the worn socks stunk.
I searched ancient pants for my Libido. Then I flossed
My Unconscious, as my teeth were strangely gapped. I slunk
Out to the toilet and dived into the bowl for a chunk
Of Sensibility, that I could call my own. Not a scrap
Of Aesthetic Value in my shit! Such moments sap
Self-confidence, so I went for a walk in the freezing street,
Where the half-moon hung, a Freudian skullcap:
The Invisible Man perched on my Judgement seat
By the frosted roofs of cars I made a snap
Decision; never try to turn yourself on like a tap
Or a frozen Old Man, ice dead for lack of heat,
From a thousand cuts by the True-Blue Rattle-Trap
(Who cashed in his precious life to bribe the Well-Heeled Chap)!
The Invisible Man perched on my Judgement seat.
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF THE OVERREACHING ARCHER
(Ballade concerning a New Deal in hell's estate, by courtesy of the New Tory Dole Cheats)
Vegetables chat in the wok,
Noting the fuchsia's fading prime.
Vision's colours, black and white, stock
Images of sick culture ... slime
They had for mortar. Tower Time,
Smash your headstone 'gainst harder skies!
Techno babble ... our systems mime
As Chaos sings: a planet dies.
Normality is culture shock;
The heartless make a killing rhyme,
Flog poor fools a false rainbow crock
Of shit... self-legalising crime
Of power snatchers, see them climb
With smirking reassuring lies,
Steal your life, overwind the clock
As Chaos sings: a planet dies.
I hoe flower beds, oil the lock ...
The frail gate must check vandals. Grime,
Spite's arrows, target my house! Block
It all out! (Buddy spare a dime ...
Dole queues in fat cat heaven ... !). I'm
Learning clarinet to be wise
As a musician. Please don't mock
As Chaos sings! (A planet dies).
So eat well, feed the Autumn cyme
(Nights draw in before old men's eyes).
Who heals the millennial zyme
As Chaos sings? A planet dies.
the sun is bloody, the sky is holy punctured above north pole we don't feel melancholy in the ultra violet rays we got genetically modified soul
smart bombs swarming in the global warming
uranium shell tip fun
we all go jogging in protective spacesuits
in the new clear midday sun
our reassuring vulture on the digital tv
an hologram an angel of death,
says open your throat and spew out your vote
you haven't a voice, you can't sing a note
no choice you're grounded , they clipped your left wing,
hip hurrah, we're on tv
we're heading for the last celestial bedroom
our final duvet in the clouds
so wrap a fool up in his cotton wool shrouds
he'll be laughing all the way to his doom
the happy torture victim spends our generous vouchers
on the tasty fast foods of the west,
dodging racist bullies, limps off back to his hostel,
we've laid his bad memories to rest
a power hungry smiler with the image of a nice guy
tells us we're all middle class,
poverty is now called something for nothing culture,
in our clever fat cat farce
the haves slam the door
we speak third way bollocks in the face of the poor,
hip hurrah, pie in the sky
a high tech pimple on the banks of thames,
a brand new millennium dome
it's a concrete mission statement, glorifies our aims,
it's our new deal ideal home
you won't be missed, if you're excluded and object,
middle england plays to win,
our trump card in our pauper cleansing project ...
if you can't pay, you can't get in
virtual fascist leader figures stuck to the levers
of power, sticky fingered super glue,
we run down the infrastructure, tax bribe wallet voters
hard boil the underclass
in media spin stew,
if you were on our gravy train, you'd smile full time too,
hip hurrah, we're new deceivers
two thousand years after the crucifixion
we party, as we hammer in the nails,
join us in our new deal, or face incarceration
In our profit-making overflowing jails!
(dedicated to the MP, whose "cost effective" solution to environmental Armageddon was third world national parks financed by tourists)
1 ecology for the taxpayer haiku
2 computer death virus tanka
maltese amoeba
screens william blakes the
auguries of innocence
then erases your hard disc
prophet in garbage nowt crash
3 root map of gender sadness tanka
i read today men
have sad thoughts on the left side
of the brain while
women generate sorrow with
the whole content of their skulls
4 weary of time elapsed haiku
motorway boredom
sunflower grows on central
reservation joy
It is a distraught landscape. It could be night
Or day; sunbeams and moonbeams cross swords;
Wild elms sway.
Next a shaft of light
Beams down from the very centre of the sky.
(Words
Throw up your syllables in despair!)
Two men
Are watching this tunnel of light. One is inspired
To envision what lies beyond the zenith of heaven:
Women in machines, naked to the waist, are wired
To skull-shaped silver helmets.
'O shit!' says his friend,
As a bearded giantess slides down the light-shaft. Her hair
Switches colours, from silver to black. She tries
To strangle this man, but he's saved as he struggles to bend
Back her wrists, by the seer with his magic wand and prayer,
Who shape-changes her back to a baby, which cries and cries.
If you would travel to Africa,
Be sure to catch the high tide!
If you should make it to Africa,
Be sure to see my lady!
Tell her the White King swept the board!
Tell her the war is over!
Tell her I'm waiting by the sea,
Trying to find an answer!
CHORUS
O the days were short and the nights were free
In the Green Queen's court.
And the dancing girls brushed the tapestries
And beat their tambourines.
And then the White King made his move,
Sent in computer mercenaries,
Cut through the palace walls of oak,
Felled the green towers with laser beams
Then giant bulldozers razed meadows into dust
And the countryside was squared in barbed wire grids
And the badgers were all gassed inside their earthy lairs
Because the White King won
Meeting the Green Queen in Africa,
Take her my ocarina,
As she dances to the talking drums,
Give her my farewell story.
Tell her I live in damp sea caves,
Dodging the robot cliff patrols,
Watching the sea birds skim the skies,
Crying for peace like freezing souls.
CHORUS
O the days were short and the nights were free etc.
So now the tongues of men will shrivel in their heads,
Their twisted heads will hang with no words to tell,
Of the sea cow or the dolphin or the great blue whale,
Because the White King won.
The python hangs from a rain forest tree,
Yawning in front of a glistering black
River. The moon is a tapestry,
Undulating, taut then slack,
An image re-woven by random ripples, a fool's
Moon in the waters; the one in the skies
Is full, bulbous, massively tropical, it cools
The humid Amazon, with her animal cries.
The forest interior echoes by the river's side:
The big cats prowl,
The screech of a night bird, a scream of pain, a growl,
Crescendo to kill as hunter and prey collide.
Continually. the incessant, high
Pitched vibrations of the crickets underlie
The grunts and shuffling rustles from the dense
Canopy. The jungle's wait is tense,
'Till howler monkeys deafen the canopy.
For an alien, threatening sound invades
The Amazonian evening. The distant noise
Of drunken men in chain sawed glades,
Brawling and bellowing in fun with the boys,
After a bruising day's work felling trees,
Building an highway into the heart
Of this delicate ecosystem. Multi-nationals seize
Raw resources, fast bucks, and depart.
The highway will form a dustbowl which will spread
Eating the giant trees.
Tribesmen and pigmies contract the white man's disease,
Losing lands and livings, where the sheltering forest is dead.
The treeless soil is exhausted after a few
Years. The shanty-town poor will find,
A cornucopia squandered by the ethically blind.
Plants expire oxygen: one of the great
Lungs of the planet will collapse. The settler's fate...
Deserted, where their tiny crops once grew.
The python hangs from a rain forest tree,
Yawning in front of a glistering black
River. The moon is a tapestry,
Undulating, taut then slack,
An image re-woven by random ripples, a fool's
Moon in the waters; the one in the skies
Is full, bulbous, massively tropical, it cools
The humid Amazon, with her animal cries.
The forest interior echoes by the river's side:
The big cats prowl,
The screech of a night bird, a scream of pain, a growl,
Crescendo to kill as hunter and prey collide.
The python goddess stirs: green worlds revive.
She sinuously sheds her tired old skin
And visits the destroyers, in woman's guise to begin
Alluring the fools to the forest for fun;
Night after night, she'll have them one by one,
Embraced in her lusty coils, and swallowed alive.
THE RETURN OF THE BIG BAD TWO-TOED STEREOPHONIC SLOTH
(nonsense song with jaws harp)
the two toed sloth he stunts my growth
and never sleeps at night
he hangs from trees while eating leaves
and never rights quite write
he's slow and clumsy on his feet
and couldn't run a metre
Chorus
but i'm very much afraid he is destined to grow
WOW WOW WOW CHA CHA CHA
like a tropical orchid in a bowl of snow
like an atomistic mystic in a Amazonian jingle
WOW WOW WOW CHA CHA CHA CHA
and never rights quite write
my uncle had a tin robot
who used to cook him dinner
this fine machine fried bacon 'n' eggs
&nbs