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
but no man could be rasher
one day it shorted at the stove
and ran off with a pylon
Chorus
but i'm very much afraid he is destined to grow
WOW WOW WOW CHA 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 auntie had an ourang-outan
living in her pear tree
this beast would throw down twigs and sticks
on snarling arched backed pussies
banana mild shake kept him fit
for wrestling with the tax man
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
First Chorus
seeing backwards to the past
stare into the future blind
try your wheeling fortune
right your lovelorn wrong
violent gales of winter blast
calm compared to stormy mind
strum your wild night tune
chant your lonely song
who are these migrants in mottled sky,
speckled soul flocks, streams in airs,
birds so soon away, they fly
to leave us caged by grounded cares?
Chorus
fire in the heartlands
bleed heart bleed
blood in the heartlands
fiery seed
cuts in the heartlands
live trees feel
peace in the heartlands
heal wounds heal
seeing backwards to the past
stare into the future blind
try your wheeling fortune
right your lovelorn wrong
violent gales of winter blast
calm compared to stormy mind
strum your wild night tune
chant your lonely song
i wander through wintry waste land
(waste human beings breed disease)
here rich men's wasting greed commands,
builds roads to tips o'er wasted trees
Chorus
fire in the heartlands etc.
i called them cowards, they felt no shame,
their sadist's hearts rejoiced in spite,
playing their cruel kid’s power game,
their victim's freeze, entrapped by fright
Chorus
fire in the heartlands etc.
who are these migrants in mottled sky,
speckled soul flocks, streams in airs,
birds so soon away, they fly
to leave us caged by grounded cares?
Final Chorus
fire in the heartlands
bleed heart bleed
blood in the heartlands
fiery seed
cuts in the heartlands
live trees feel
peace in the heartlands
heal wounds heal
who are these migrants in mottled sky,
speckled soul flocks, streams in airs,
birds so soon away, they fly
to leave us caged by groundless cares?
'how can we tell the observer from the observed?' W. B. Krishnamurthi
Cardiff drizzle, I cannot style it rain.
Alas I am a wet and lonely, dirty
Gutter; my shallow head a brain drain,
Awash with soggy papers, no Krishnamurthi
I weep and gush fat tears of filthy water.
Down the pan incarnate, what shall I be
In the life to come? Perhaps a toad's daughter,
A swan, a paper boat or a willow tree?
This is a wishy-washy sonnet. I never
Really wanted to dip my pen in it. A lot
Of garbage has flushed under the bridge, since I began
To draft it.
I'll fall like the rain for ever and ever,
A cloud was my mother, I am her damp child.
"You forgot
"To be a gutter, or not to be a man!"
Grandma will score a ton of years;
She likes her booze and fags.
She knocks back frothing Guinness beers,
While a middle class mother nags
Grandma for her messy ways.
In the fifties' teacher's house,
Grandma reads her Mirror, and stays
In her room as parents grouse.
In her Daily Mirror a small boy read
Of Eden's Suez crisis,
How Marciano 'knocked Cockell dead',
And of Mars Bars rising prices.
Plain Jane toffees were Grandma's sweets,
Her sherry warmed the belly,
While watching uneducational treats
On Grandma's rolling tele.
I am my past; I am my ancestors;
What am I, clutching trapped birds in flight
With Venus fly-trap reflex to encode the crash?
That old man dying of cancer is me.
Gentle and dopey into Dylan's good night,
Cradled on Sister Morphine's bosom, the claws
Of death are clipped, the end without insight.
I am my past; I am my ancestors.
Our laughter blows over a mound of flesh-fed ash.
I work the miner's lift, holiday in Paris,
Or bury the Welsh dead to earn my cash.
That old man dying of cancer is me.
I catch the luminous flying disc in the light
Of orange Cardiff street lamps. I hoard my stores
Of mandolines, slide images and private wars.
What am I, clutching trapped birds in flight?
In the web of our past, I blunder, buzz and thrash
Memories to life rafts, wrecked in a broiling sea
Of childhood fears. Who speeds to set me free
With Venus fly-trap reflex to decode the crash?
I die from nine to five; I live a nightmare,
Where unquiet spirits harass (O to live daily
And merely dream of unquiet spirits!), who flare
Their stuttering messages in riddling entropy:
I am my past; I am my ancestors.
(for my father William Morgan Davies)
I am Rhondda Mountain, monarch of my senses.
I blink sheepishly at green, at the shining pastels
Of the roofs of Maerdy and Ferndale, in the chancy, gusty
Airs of wet sunshining summer.
Welcome
Sun to rain sloshed Wales.
My father's kingdom,
Chattering (cacophony a shrill nasal sing-song),
Of other Welsh folk, but not of the mountain (a
presence
Not at home, rudely exposed above
Stove-heated, house-proud parlours).
Opposite my highness
In between the vast contours of Aberdare
And Rhondda (proud twin peaks), tiny
Terraces nestle sociably, cosily embedded
In the cleavage of the valley (a kind of crazy paving
Geometry).
stately migrant clouds
nature's moody airships now
dapple rhondda vale's
songs scored by protean airs
mutable light and
shade sing kaleidoscopic
chiaroscuro eye choir
There are great cracks, concealed sinister
Cavities, grave flaws eating into the unconscious
Rhondda, coal black caverns underneath
My earthy paradise.
Open sesame!
In my
Rebellious maw, erupting beer streams wash
Down, digesting tumultuous a mountainous hoard
Of fish and chips untold, fried riches
Of a principality.
You'll never hear a stone
Plumbing the bottomless depths of Rhondda. It always
Catches on a ledge and echoes
echoes
echoes,
An unsound enigma. One stumble at the edge
(if Gravity's your fall-guy), tumbling ever faster
Into hungry hell.
They're frying tonight in Rhondda.
can you guess my riddle
before I leave again
to wander down this green valley
to sound of the falling rain
along the green welsh valley
sound of the falling rain
Chorus
double rainbow, wet sunshine,
see that train puff down the line
steaming `neath the bridge o'er which I'm floating
all along the shining green welsh valley
i had the urge to travel
to see a land called spain
but when I found a dry rocky place
i pined for the falling rain
along the green welsh valley
Chorus
double rainbow, wet sunshine etc
my mother bore three children
i won't see two again
i left behind the wind and sun
i left with the falling rain
along the green welsh valley
left with the falling rain
Chorus
double rainbow, wet sunshine etc
my thoughts now flow so slowly
there isn't any pain
my memories dissolve inside
the sound of the falling rain
along the green welsh valley
sound of the falling rain
Chorus
double rainbow, wet sunshine etc
i am a moody airship
chained to sky's empty brain
i am the phantom cloud who dies
to sound of the falling rain
along the green welsh valley
sound of falling rain.
double rainbow, wet sunshine etc
remorseless Welsh
rain
loveless and chilly
finely
enmeshing a body
forced under shelter
o animal trapped
in a wordy net by watery webs
casting a poem into
a void
riddling seeds sown
in deep
space
lost
forever
old sickle cuts tall
young grasses
death
and the maiden death
and the maiden is poetry
howling poet
howling full of howling at
a full moon
DUSK WOMAN OF THE PRESELI MOUNTAINS
Two round cairns on Foeldrygarn, her stone
Breasts.
Now she's below the mountain, in that lone
Voice of hornèd anguish, fenced off from her calf.
See a mist pelisse on her rangy flanks, an half
Developed Preseli Isis,she flickers into flight,
Now a flash-tailed coney, lost in the phantom light.
The sky's face has lost its colour. An instant
Ago, the slate grey clouds were alight with salmon
Flushes.
Politico, bird of prey, a mutant,
He has sliced open his belly in the pursuit of Mammon,
And wears his intestines externally like the golden brocade
Of a toy town soldier. Luckily it is all taking
Place under his suit.
The first clock was made
Of sky. Time's poet learns the craft of faking
Old masters from fresh scrap (Art's unspoken contract).
A burnt fleshly pall ... the auto-da-fé
Is announced. The cruel denies the other love:
Keen teeth smile but eyes belie warm contact,
Watching folk burning with fascinated piety.
The way
(a lai)
He was drunk and mad,
Ranting at the sad
Sane men
Bearing the great lad
Coffin'd, not shroud clad
Open
To curious eyes
And the clustered flies
Who droned
In mourning. 'Who cries,
'Asking why he dies?'
They moaned,
But told this strange fool
(Gargoyle leer like ghoul
From hell),
'Our champion's cruel
'Fate shocks. As a rule
'All fell,
Struggling in his grasp,
'Were upended, their clasp
'Unsure.
'Crushing grips would hasp
'Pinned shoulders, now rasp
'The floor,
'Strain, weaken, fail ! So
'Skill and power grow
'Supreme.
'But the strong don't know,
'Death can overthrow their dream
'(Always victory!).
'Death closed his story:
'Youth died.'
'And so the glory
'Won was lost!', so he
Replied,
That crazed railer 'Death
'Threw him like Macbeth,
'With snares
'Tripped him, winded breath,
'Choked life from him, saith
"Who dares
"Brave my stranglehold
"Risks all, overbold,
"Astride
"My victims, my hold
"Clamps: they're laid out cold,
"Blind-eyed!"'
A CELLULOID PARANOID FROM BUNUEL
A geometric ritual, he will walk
In turn, the entire width of each stair,
Half way to the top, he'll sit with care,
Look straight ahead. Big cat's eyes frozen stalk!
Trouble bubbling!
He pulls out a stair rod, drums
'Twixt the banisters, rattling with an accelerating beat.
His wife
Upstairs, hears him below, fears for her life.
(Unlike the great paranoiac, our madness comes
And goes by interpretation, depending on who
Consider themselves our confessors.
A clamorous belfry
Deafens the rational: what's afoot when you feel
Your ego wearing itself out like an old shoe,
'Till soul's an unshod tot.)
Pacing Hell's ivy
Cloisters, a cowled figure nears the tunnel surreal.
softly in
pranayama
i hear her voice
calmly
caressing
the spaces between
each breath
pranayama
her voice soars up
from her vibrant trunk
a soft full feathered
white bird
soaring into space
from her vibrant trunk
from her woman's tree
a white bird
a brilliant shaft of cloud appears
through the red body of a dying sun
thrusting into a lilac pool of sky beyond
nerve ganglia spark in the white hot brain
of a creature with ears of silver
legs of solid gold
shut down his skin blinds
after images on the inner lids
a green disc swarming with a myriad forms
creatures twisting entwining together
like indian temple carvings come
to life in a languorous then frenzied dance
soon the creatures are growing
outside the temple a crop with ears
of silver and gold wand stalks
The Rainbow Colour Creator failed to make a Rainbow Species in his own image. He crafted creatures in different colours, blending golden molten atoms from the sun with cold silver dew of the moon.
red hot magma sliding sparking
golden sweat from the sky forge
pouring into a moony pool and so
black man carved from the ebony world tree
white man from the milky way
yellow time sand man
brown man conceived dreaming in burnt
sienna palaces of hashish
red man cast from the cooling furnaces of that dying sun
(and the ensuing eternal torment of El Timbo)
the rising sun posts a sunbeam in a letter the letter discusses
how to square the circle the letter also contains the moon &
stars the missive is delivered to the world bird who nests
above jupiter jupiter has several moons who have a
discussion in which they decide to create a new world
these creative moons take a dollop of class one
nothing wearing a bowler hat from out of a black
hole all things are possible in this best of all
possible universes these crazy moons mix a soupcon of
darkness from the unshaved face of the deep they toss it
about a bit on the horns of the sacred cosmic cow and oop la
animals birds fishes and green plants materialise from the
bowels of the void as if by magic or japanese technology
encouraged by their success the animated moons fashion man
out of sacred cosmic cow dung and follow up this coup
with woman beautiful breasts but no peanus soon fishes
dance in thin air and its fun fun fun on planet
earth until the serpent is rolled out from the last
stale scrap of cosmic cow pat the serpent is the
archetypal free market entrepreneurial spiv who unbalances
the cosmic equation to see how he can exploit suffering and
chaos on a global scale he is found wanting more as god appears
on the scene as a great shiny robot when the seventh sunrise
explodes in golden glory uplifted from below the horizon on
the back of a gigantic turtle man and woman make love
which is an experience as good as it is evil and so
god sends down one of his angelic hit men to evict
them from paradise for neglecting safe sex they are
expelled cast out into the brutal world to earn their
bread by standing on their own two feet and cultivating a
viable marketable image not surprisingly they relapse into the
forbidden joys of sex the serpent now consigned in perpetuity to
a burning fiery pit laughs his fangs off millions of people
arrive in a wing beat of the world bird in the form of
children the world is beautiful lush green hills
broiling seas gods and greenery next the white mans
civilisation appears like acne on the face of the
planet leaving slimy trails of pollution from its
armour plated snails of destruction soon after the start
of bourgeois history the clapped out old poet and wastrel
el timbo dies and plummets into the gas flames of hell the
assembled demons demand that his latest hit single the return of
the big bad two toed stereophonic sloth be performed non stop
an enthusiastic audience they howl cheer gibber and cavort
demanding endless encores so the poor old sod has
perforce to perform throughout all eternity his red
hot jaws harp blistering his lips perpetual
creativity is hell
late into the night
the creature meditates, but his mind
can't escape
from the interminable ticking
of his old alarm clock
he puts it out onto the landing
late into the night
he meditates
but he still hears
its muffled tick
He decides to go out onto the landing, to place
The offending mechanism further away in the bathroom
Behind a closed door. His hand grasps
The clock, and it stops at once. At last he can meditate
In peace: the wind whooshes outside, and rattles the insides of his head,
While vixens scream in demon foxy undergrowth.
a line from a song
by rambling jack
bitter wind
blow my blues away
two images
in the creature's mind
worker ants
grip their larvae
squeeze their bodies, weave
a house of leaves, with children's silk
above a church tower
an iron grey bar
of cloud cleaves
a full moon
(autumn breeze at daybreak)
warm stranger's feathers stroke
shell of dawn's genesis
wings of sheer air
who vanish o'er blowy trees
at the first soundless crack
vast viewless pinions flexed
wings of sheer air
who vanish o'er blowy trees
egg of dark fragmènts
fable born winds are born
wings of sheer air
who vanish o'er blowy trees
gusty beats easing, slow fading breathings,
from wings and lungs of globe's great roc
gliding giant sighing
at vanquished night's skyline
wings of sheer air
who vanish o'er blowy trees
warmer still days see
pink blossoms on a green ground
never to bear fruit
listen in silence
a cold clock ticks for nothing
is no thing timeless
broody chicken thrust
off her eggs unlike small hen
blazons defiance
she looks into a
mirror will she see love stare
back from what remains
laugh naked black girl
dancing on love fires the hump
backed beast disports pain
now late evening comes
she will sup milk tire sleep
dream dying a little
she shall barely sing
seven songs before midnight
sea cliffs cloak her voice
hand shaped legend fey
shadow forms focus grow blur
magic lantern dims
TORN APART BY THE HUNTRESS
1
Desire
If the moon is an open door, where
Does it lead? If the moon
Is a virgin huntress with platinum hair,
How do you enter? What tune
Do you sing to disarm
Her arrows of cool white fire?
But tonight the smothered moon near died,
A blanket of clouds
Pulled over her face. I magically tried
To give mouth to mouth to her shrouds.
She succumbed to my charm:
The moon then died of desire.
2
Loss
The moon's now really dead, and it's made
Of language, words tighten
Like crumpled paper, a letter the blade
Had slit. I try to lighten
My darkside heart
With a moon-stricken farewell note.
3
Rebirth
The bulging, pear-shaped earth swelled,
Her waters broke;
The moon forced out, spun free, dispelled
Her mother's burden. The yoke
Of the tides drags out art
Forms the lunatic pen never wrote.
an unknown walker in a country lane at night
breeze whirred telegraph
wires night vibrations
bat winged
messages
now
trees
fused wind sculpted trees back brushed
straight topped gainst skyline
tree blackness below rook nests
sleepy muffled squawks
he walks he flows a water
wheel to the cross roads
where a shooting sprite bursts through
the star pricked dome
who goes there?
THE MOMENT OF FOOTFALL
(This ramble took place on a public footpath from Ebley, leading to Harescombe Beacon. It was very cold with brilliant sun, especially on the hill tops. The valleys about the Cotswold way were faintly misty, and the sun was, at times, masked by the trees of the small woods, which often surrounded the path).
On the Cotswold Way, the sky
Freezing, solid blue, fierce cold
With bright sun. Thirty two years old
You feel you have to try
To find the words.
Iced horseshoe prints on the bridle way. Nothing grieves,
If memories can die
In silence, absorbed by the path to the beacon, can be
Lost in these woody shades, by observing a tree ...
But then I ask, why
It isn't happening to me?
The air so still,
So much turbulence in my head,
I meet Fear poised to kill
In the guise of an alsatian (the Dog of Dead
Kingdoms, of Mine and Yours), outside
A bungalow. Our eyes meet
And turn aside:
Death prefers tinned meat.
My mind quivers over the glittering image
Like the thieving magpie's beak.
Were those pale bellied flocks on that brown field there,
Starling or fieldfare?
The tagging words don't
Trap the bird. Caged in
The past, I cannot speak
Of growing insight, aging,
While this sense of loss won't
Invoke the walk at its peak,
The actual peak, the moment of footfall.
on not reaching the
beacon an haiku on not
reaching the beacon
(Soon the bridleway ended. I left the track to Harescombe, and bore right toward Edge).
sun fired vale below
the inn on frosty edge moor
sun fired vale below
(I skirted Edge, and walked up to the parish of Painswick. The church steeple dissected the blue-ice sky, the air a clear frozen block of all-encompassing energy).
(scene set in an Igloo tent, held up by inflatable tubes, pitched in an isolated corner of a badger field in a place called Paradise, Gloucestershire, circa early eighties)
breeze palms my tent
films leafy shades flicker on orange canvas
sun shine movies the mind bound eye focuses
on an orange canvas sun
paints foliage silhouettes
and in this picture what is lost
the first sleepless night in
the drained of colour orange
tent fear is gradually reborn
every external sound irrational rustling
terrors a set of man eating badgers ringing
my house of thin material poised
to be bitten and shredded to devour
me alive bones and balls
terror escalates beyond belief front part of brain says
go out there and prove to yourself that they are not
there back part of brain says
move a muscle and the creatures
will sense the fear don't
trigger them off
endless night of visceral panic surging up and down
backbone mind cannot
tame the formless beasts of primeval lightless encirclings
badger behemoths poised to crash through my
my frail shelter now dim shadowy tapestry
relief of dawn in the almost orange tent the sun
peeps birds chorale and I sweat
out an age of dismal woe to struggle free from
sleeping bags of nightmare groveling stiffly naked
cold and traumatised out of the igloo
tent trees out there nothing else till
a brown field mouse shrieks and flees betwixt the tangled
bole of roots at the overgrown
base neath the trunk of a great tree towering
above my orange igloo he
scared me shitless all night that
furry little bastard
the pneumatic tubes suspending my
igloo in space bounce secure serene in a delicate
dawn breeze I shiver a skinny early morning al fresco
nude and sag back inside to re-enter
my duck feather cocoon with exhausted relief to stare
at the inflated trellis of my orange canvas
roof and watch shadowy
tree vision
breeze palms my tent
films leafy shades flicker on orange canvas
sun shine movies the mind bound eye focuses
on an orange canvas sun
paints foliage silhouettes
and in this picture what is lost
envoi
I raise my Olympus OM2 SLR camera and shoot an organic compost heap, below Foeldrygarn Mountain. My view-finder mists over from heat haze, and I recall the Igloo tent, pitched for six months in the grounds of Paradise. And in this picture what is lost?
as the
bald bard
expansive brow deeply
etched by lines of verse
si ok
ow n o wo
br g b rm
the hammer red mad euphony of
wavestrike rimmed blakean the cosmic
anvil in shell eye the orb rays bouncing
bags of proud talents
acoustic nexus heavy droop off the inner
jodrell webb prow of ear drums
sampling it the homeric hooter paradiddle
lips songs
kiss salt
saliva
pointed epigrammatical
or lyrical romance
chin wag
goatee
.
a court bard dreams, holds in his hand
a horse skull on the trail
to a castle, hid in a wasted land
where a speared king bleeds in a grail
and watches rainbow fishes swim
in the well of merlin's palm
as world bruised knights-in-armour
urge their steeds to seek him
his true love is a secret tease
a romance virgin bride
who flies his dreams like starry kites
which dance in wind, dark, space
he begs her to tell what she sees
that fires her eyes and face
she'll tell her vision through the night
(then off side-saddle ride):
‘an axis shifts, a great globe tilts
‘the poles reverse their fields
‘vast cracks ope', the old king wilts
‘the dying landscape yields
‘mountain ranges fracture vales
‘fire-storm, blue bolt, flood
‘dry bed oceans, stranded whales
‘an horse shoe in the mud’
music: castle ramparts shake
the dream had swiftly gone
dawn came to his grey window,
then noon, a weird son shone
he slept dreamless till dusk, then wakes
his dry eyes ache for tears
in trembling courtyards far below
a stallion frets and rears
[original idea from a draft of a proposed song lyric by Owen Davis]
blue fist of sky thru
the broken white cloud
whose
hand on the cuckoo clock
warwkin dahn aee ba'ah allee
ah didn av aee cairw
aee dus bin wars be ave in odd
verw lid wars slahly workin fwee
an oowose u'ah in vee air
aee noodist decked wiv gahbidge stood
wivin verw bin verw lid wars on is ed
ah swairw i'ah wars verw livin gawd
ood risin fwom verw ded
is fleyemin bunsin burnah ahs
whah'er van whah'ah snahwy hairw
awide in oowottin vegtibewls
cwusht tin cans an oowappings fairw
an smelly lum'sah of cweechahs wha'ah ad dahd
bein a bi'ah ova lad ah geye mlee caw'sah
‘whah yew in va'ah dus bin gawd
arw vose gee iblits rahnd yaw baw'sah?’
wiv flairwin nostwils ee ooweeplahd
‘san ahm evweewherw’ah
[Hemel Hempstead "cockney" diaspora, circa late 1950's]
(an inconsequence of sponsored haikai no renga)
1
Spring
an operatic telegraph haiku written for the grant money
to cuts art sell great
brigand want fat cheque scrawled rich
busty libretto
2
Summer
law and order haiku appended to frame of photos shot for the grant money
flickering around flame
an enlightened moth god help
those who can't help it
3
Autumn
muzac of the spheres haiku scored for the grant money
spectral music in
an orange room
i fail to
find the phantom pipes
4
Winter
late night haiku on a volcanic pool of solid puke sculpted on a flagstone, new years day 1988 for the grant money
at my feet vomits
coronet discrowned spent year
will new one rain so
[These best value haiku are brought to you by courtesy of the Cuts Artsell of Great Brigand]
child to uniform
are you a policeman no
i'm a man of god
[a shaggy naga uta mystery]
John Keats sprawled on the
deep oriental rug, a
tight noose dangling from
a bruised ankle. Inspector
Blackwood frowned, staring
disdainfully down upon
the romantic stiff,
turned peremptorily to
his Sergeant Hazlitt
(the stolid subordinate),
who peered over an
old office typewriter, his
bland brow crinkled, as
he scrutinised the paper
inserted in the
machine.
‘drowsy... numb...ness’, he
read aloud slowly.
‘Drowsy numbness my foot !’ the
Inspector rasped. ‘Damned
poets! Drugged weirdies!
Effeminate clowns!
What a filthy way to die!’
‘Is the chap dead?’, asked
Hazlitt in shock, taking off
his tall blue helmet.
His chief sourly pulled off his
bowler in a show
of reluctant respect. The
good Sergeant now scanned
once more the bewildering
manuscript lodged in
the black guts of the machine.
(Man of few letters),
‘ODD TO AN NIGHTINGALE’, he
misread. Blackwood slapped
his forehead, as the jigsaw
came together in
the interlocked cells of his
brain.
‘Jove, I've got it!’,
he shouted, now recalling
the unsolved cases
of half a lifetime. ‘Hazlitt,
remember Sergeant,
the Italian job, poet
blighter found face down,
drowned dead in a goldfish pond ...
Percy what's-'is-name ...
by the body a scuppered
toy sail boat ... chap's heart
was missing ... had been ripped out...
found later on the
continent ... burnt to a crisp
on a beach camp fire
by black magic bounders ... some
soggy poem found
on the body, load of tripe ...
hell's teeth, what was it
called?’
Hazlitt had the hunted
look of a man with a lost
line on the tip of
his tongue. ‘ODD TO AN SKYLARK’
(inspired he quoted
with gusto).
'Fishy affair
I thought at the time!’,
mused Blackwood. ‘It's beginning
to make sense to me:
poets found clutching pistols,
brains decorating
the wallpaper, poets found
poisoned (draped over
bedsteads), poets gassed (heads in
cookers), poets stoned
to death, poets mugged (dying
fighting), that mad one
who died singing (unnatural
I call it), poets
done in by fascists....
And not
surprising! Weirdies
ask for it, if you want my
opinion!’
‘Sir!’
called Sergeant Hazlitt. A large
colourful card was
pinned to John Keat's breast with an
old gold, large, jeweled,
heavy, vulgar, Old English
adjectival brooch.
‘Strewth!’ ejaculated the
Inspector. ‘Good show,
Hazlitt, you're onto something
there! Hm, picture of
a hanged fellow printed on
the card.’ Blackwood leered
at the corpse with ill concealed
relish. ‘I've not bumped
into one of these lately
in a friendly game
of brag’, he guffawed harshly.
Hazlitt was distressed.
‘He's upside down. The poor chap
on the card, Sir, he's
been hung there arse over tit!’
‘Dammit!’, snapped Blackwood
(miffed as ever by insights
of underlings).
‘He
is! Upside down!’, volunteered
Hazlitt once again.
Blackwood's hairline short fuse blew.
‘You're looking at the
case from the wrong angle, you
nincompoop!’, he snarled.
[Will Blackwood crack the Tarot?
Don't miss next tense installment!]
The drums call, Salvador, the talking drum,
The animist pulse!
The eyes of your muse are black
Doors to worlds you can never enter.
You come
Out of the picture, reaching for a way back.
Would the painting be better off without you, Dali, as you stretch
Out your arm to touch us (narcissistic star
Of a silent scream)?
The squatting clones, or the wretch
You depict, crumpled on the hourglass deserts of Africa,
Mute unconscious drum beats in your head.
This is not the Africa, of the Ibo chief
Who made that gourd mbira, which released
Its root music, pricking my ears.
You fled
tanka after seeing lorca's play
wed by blood two stabbed
rivals stiff mouths ajar teeth
bare knuckles of snow
loves horse fled the moons cold knife
death beggars and women keen
cold hard england lost
sun spain south warm blue autumn
beached in café bar
sipping manzanilla tea
o to andalusia
Autumn wheels in her embers, till the black boots
Of winter stamp them down. The blind feet
Shuffling, scattering in the breeze crinkled, fleet
Gold-foil leaves,
See the withering fruits
On the dying trees, drop to their buried roots,
While the lyrical West Wind sweeps the streets,
Lilting amidst the skipping litter.
I meet
Zephyros in a back-alley duel, and he airily shoots
Me up the trouser leg.
I am a wordy scarecrow,
Tatterdemalion, flapping, I bluster and curse
The petrol fumes, the decaying weather.
I stand:
Is there no crow to spook, no place to go,
No field to scan, our inner city hearse
Steered at its wintry grave by wind's loose hand?
the contents of an average barrow
the barrow has a roof full of speakers
making public announcements inaudible
see here a small cup
of black unbaked clay
riddled with grass roots it crumbles at a touch
item some early british pots,
item a bronze helmet,
a job lot of samian ware,
some kimmeridge shale coal
money, a brilliant ruby coloured
gem, five roman
coins, and many rainbow shells
the barrow is an ill lit sandy mound
inside are four human bodies and the bones
of some dead animal, perhaps a twin horned
rhinoceros, a little clawed horse, a giant swine
or remains of a gazelle camel
the first find in this deranged barrow
was a skull severed from the body
the next a human being
with all his bones
now a rib a rib of adam
considered a noble lady
another's head points to the East
lastly a tiny green glass bead
(On returning after several years)
You demolish the past and shopping-precinct blank
Spaces. The rod and axe of Roman law
Are carved above your court, like any fascist bore
The law is always right. We can only thank
You for the surviving lace market, whose dirt-red
Black brick buildings reach up vainly into grey
Vacant heavens., totter out from another day,
Upstanding queasily in a world of lingerie, bed
Linen, underwear, nightwear, leisurewear ...
The furs
of the merchant princes are now off the peg or worse!
At the corner of Pilcher Gate, the four hundred year
Old house of the Sherwins, lawyers and magistrates is now
Occupied by Adriana babywear. It's strange to see how
Dimly you exhibit your historical wares. Here
The ancient cliff path, Malin Hill to Short Stairs,
High pavement, Stoney Street: there is
The metal Birkin Boundary Line, unclear
What it demarcates now!
Stalls of the fleshers
Long gone from Fletcher's Gate ... commercial pressures?
You're knocking down the redbrick past: Forest Road,
Former ghetto for students and blacks. The derries
Used to house old friends. Autumn memories,
A stone memorial, these time cropped falls bestowed
In the park, as I think of Tom and Lou, who risked
The Hall of Mirrors at Goose Fair, while their girls
Ran off. The flashing merry-go-round whirls
It all away, fluttering cyclically, whisked
With yellow leaves.
'Th'eternal laugh' shouts
The Witness to the shoppers, 'will spring oop within yer!'
No doubts!
by El Fred Lord Timbosson
Tears idle tears (while the heedless rich print money),
Tears from the pits of some idle despair
Rise from the dole, and blind your useless eyes,
While blinking at this leaf fouled Autumn path,
Wading through a past like liquid manure.
Fresh as a flashlight glittering on a snail,
Slimy, sweatshop jobs for the jobless underclass,
Sunrise jobs that last till the sacked sunset
Sinks a slow body-shot below the belt:
So sad, so strange, the right to work no more.
Ah sad and strange, the sacrifice of pawns,
In bed for the cold like half-awakened jail birds,
Singing of dying freedoms to deaf ears,
Of fat cats clawing the working world to shreds,
So sad, so strange, the pay days are no more.
Dear as profiteering ledgers after death,
The price of food, the heating costs inflate.
Survival kisses a mouth alive with herpes,
Cheap as first love, and wild with mounting debts.
O Death in life, O global dole cheque drab!
Mother Dole I'd have no tea
without the bread you give to me
sweet culture of dependency
Brother Dole you free my soul
from living hell of sweat shop role,
to fiddle through life like Old King Cole
Sister Dole's kind milky chest
(her bosom cradles me in rest
with handouts governed by means test)
Uncle Dole leads me a dance
to sign on in a welfare trance
to cash my scrounger's inheritance
Auntie Dole brings equal pay
(for waged, unwaged, fat cat and stray,
none cheat the Planet's Judgment Day)
Father Dole rules poor means crimes
to scrounge the time to scrawl these rhymes
in trainee neo-fascist times
[response to Allen Ginsberg's chant, after seeing him perform in Stroud, Gloucestershire]
A BABY BIRD FOUND DEAD ON THE PAVEMENT
Another sunset, another rejection slip!
This one came through the sky.
(The early worm
Eats the late bird).
A fatal trip
(Morsels squirm
In a rival's beak, in a gull's pursuit, in the hot
Air above the river Taff. They're primed
For keening tussles in the red streaked blue).
What
(The red disc slots into the void).
Now your skinny featherless frame is laid out neatly,
Stiffening sculpture, enacting a very small
Job in life, soon fired by death, unemployed
Like a stone in the roots of a yew.
Whistling sweetly,
it be t'unemployed grave digger song
once I worked with people, served my fellow son's of dust
now the council's laid me off, me shovel's caked with rust
ashes to ashes, dust to dust, what a way to earn a crust
it be t'unemployed grave digger
well a working man needs a little bit of luck
it cheers you up to clock on / off before you kick the bucket
given a pay slip and a stiff, well I didn't give a fuck
it be t'unemployed grave digger
well the greasy rain oils the scalp of urban gloom
i walk these streets for warmth in vain, the dole won't heat my room
see the free corpse market thrive, yet they buried me alive
it be t'unemployed grave digger
with me mattock in me hand and me pious mourner's face
i could bury all your troubles till they rot without a trace
empty tank, stalled mortal coil, you may drill that North Heaven Oil
it be t'unemployed grave digger
so you think you're pretty healthy and you'll never end up dead
well I had a place to stuff you, it were worm's house lined with lead
now you're happy getting laid, you'll be laid out on your bed
by t'prim faced undertaker
sometimes a human bone or two sprouted from the muck
once I found a skull stuck in a footpath's tar macadam
alas poor sod I didn't know his nameless head from Adam
i was only the grave digger
some say that higher spirit gaffers have a master plan
to upgrade life, rebuild, re-tune a new eternal man
his bladder is titanium, he need never hit the can
it means unemployed grave diggers
i stood tall when my graveyard wellies clogged my sweating feet
if I now had strength to lift a brick I'd riot on the street
when the revolution comes, I'll dig black holes for the elite
it be t'unemployed grave digger
you drive along life's motorway, in high speed lanes to hell
but my working hearse steered to the tomb, deaf to death's hard sell
toiling in the encircling gloom, cheers, I got on very well
as a fully employed grave digger
once I worked with people, served my fellow son's of dust
now the council's laid me off, me shovel's caked with rust
ashes to ashes, dust to dust, what a way to earn a crust
It be t'unemployed grave digger
SHIP OF DYING BODY ELECTRIC NOTES
Oblivious of senses, broken heart or skin,
Reckless not intentional, the gesture cube reacts,
As does the sensor chair, responsive to our acts:
Bodies conducting space for Leon's theremin.
Other worldly, weak electric fields begin
Transforming energy, its music interacts,
Its boat may roll, pitch, yaw, attracts
The hypercello's ghosted wavelengths.
In
Using instruments gleaned from techno scrap,
Now Nature's crafty fools may busk the song:
Winds sound the autoharp, the fingers dead,
All the harpists perished; their lover's lap
Tops long drained of electric life, long, long
Decayed where lost humanities are shed.
[Argument
Automatic or semi-automatic musical instruments play themselves, or may be played by weak electric fields, generated by the movement of human bodies in proximity. It is envisaged, that in the future automatic musical artifacts will be built all over the planet. They may endure as mysterious memorials analogous to standing stones, after the species expires (to be played by the elements, or by any other species that discovers them)]
sunflower chants forget me nots and primrose clusters
trees with trunks of indigo and silver leaves
pearls set in girls thigh bones
castanets of ivory
jungle cat flamencos on the road to spain
the diamond rock hard road to spain
the spanish sunset
dancing feet drum on the diamond road to spain
if i might seize the morning star
i might guess just who you are
i'd take you dancing free from pain
if i might find you once again
though craggy peaks crumple up plains
and skies might roof my crumbling brains
and though sweet venus fall to mars
i'd woo your love with gentle guitars
high craggy peak high craggy peak
high craggy peak high craggy peak
high craggy peak high craggy peak
high craggy peak peak peak peak peak
[from Lorca]
The guitar drums
Into her lament,
Dashing down the wine
Glasses of the dawn.
The guitar drums
Into her lament,
Futile to hush her,
Helpless to silence her,
An insistent keening
Like the keening waters,
Like the wind keening
Above the snowdrifts.
Silence
Helpless,
Crying for distant
Ineffable frontiers.
Hot sands of the South
Which beg for white camellias,
An aimless arrow crying,
Evening lacking morning,
The first dead
Bird on bough.
Guitar, guitar,
Your heart sorely wounded by five swords!
MANDOLINE TIME
(A musical anagram for a poet)
Mandoline time in the skull acts in wisdom:
(Rhythm transfigures the temporal act).
When I was a child, electric storms of images
Erupted from the music, I heard in my head, from time
To time myriad choirs harmonised in my skull,
Now drums speak to me, guitars play with my mandoline.
Ocarina, mbira, jaws harp, talking-drum, mandoline
Invoke the roots, an aboriginal musical wisdom.
Notes resonate in the sound box of the human skull,
And I may not hear, what you hear in the act
Of playing (sounds transformed in trance time,
The music dances in the mind's ear's images).
All sounds are one, reverberant acoustical images
(A bushman's guashi duets with a future mandoline).
The crackling feet of a flamenco dancer are a time
Signature; with a flourish they inscribe swift measured wisdom
On the earth: duende transfigures the word, dance or act,
As if you could see the passions in a crystal skull.
Mood songs of bushmen are chanted in undertones, the skull
Illuminated, the brain pulses with deep rooted images
Of the totem, the tribal grail as harmonious act
In the play of pre-history. (Guitar and mandoline
Sound through time's soul-bell with the ancient guashi). Does wisdom
Master death by delivering us of stillborn time?
From your birth, you drum your heart beats on a time
Scale, until the putrescent matter in the skull
Is absorbed into the sky, or into the elemental wisdom
Of globe's girdling worm, earth song images,
Blake dies singing, while the tremolo of the mandoline
Deludes us; one note is sustained, as the many act.
If music nurtures love's brief timeless act
(And love when unsustained, must die in time),
Does death from his wormy gondola sing to a mandoline,
Clinging to the pod-backed shell like a lover's skull
(Echoing to lost soul-bells, dead love's images),
Then sink in his Stygian canal, sans desire, sans wisdom?
envoi
I'd live as a musical act, a song softly silenced by time,
As a singing crystal skull, heart strings strummed by images,
As a rippling mandoline; earthing the lightning of wisdom.
when
crickets play their leg mandolines
and bumble bees suck up to wild flowers
a
griddling fiddler's mad tune begins
hey diddle diddle grind and jar
a pink
carnation garlands each ear
a sherry bottle clenched in his fist
he warbles tears for souvenirs
hey diddle diddle grind and jar
passers by just give him the bird
and toss a copper after a jeer
or turn a deaf ear or so I've heard
hey diddle diddle grind and jar
in past lives the fiddler played dances for hours
dionysiac girls pranced bare to his tunes
bodies entranced alive to his powers
hey diddle diddle grind and jar
no woman might resist the flèche
fired by the wanton purblind brat
a gut stringed music to melt the flesh
hey diddle diddle grind and jar
now hansoms pass and splash him with mud
gas lights lit cast ghosts in his face
the sherry stiffens his body's thin blood
hey diddle diddle grind and jar
tight streets reek of gutter gin
booze doped babes awake begin
to screech with starved cats to his violin
hey diddle diddle grind and jar
his bow now wafts a foul bitter tune
as foam gobs drum on a brass spittoon
a lean flanked cow stumbles over the moon
hey diddle diddle grind and jar
when crickets play their leg mandolines
and bumble bees suck up to wild flowers
a phantom fiddler's mad tune ...
now i see the coast is clear, from the atlantic storm beach
now at last the coast is free, i see atlantis rising high.
castles perched on precipice, emerging from a blue expanse,
valleys decked with wheat and palm trees dreaming on her beaches.
if only it were true, i'd head out there with you.
the third day that the cock crowed
the dreamer woke once more to be
awake! betrayed! betrayed awake!
come down through the oil slick to the sea bed!
now i see the coast is clear, from the atlantic storm beach
now at last the coast is free, i see atlantis rising high.
i look into my telescope and see the dancing peoples,
whirling round their maypoles and their totems and their steeples.
if only it were true, i'd head out there with you.
the third day that the cock crowed
the dreamer woke once more to be
awake! betrayed! betrayed awake!
come down through the oil slick to the sea bed!
now i see the coast is clear, from the atlantic storm beach
now at last the coast is free, i see atlantis rising high.
i put my ear against the sands and hear flamencos singing free,
from mosque and glittering minaret the fierce muezzin reaches me.
if only it were true, i'd head out there with you.
the third day that the trumpet shrilled
the dreamer woke once more to be
awake! awake! o joyous lake!
go up to the mountain and make music!
strange maritime muzak haiku
sea change music in
an orange room
i fail to
fathom phantom pipes
missing sonnet on ship out of water
in orange rust pool
dry docked sea alarm
little
song written and lost
one day I took a walk down to old harry
where craggy fangs jut from the sea.
legions of gulls flocked all over the cliff tops
whitened the green cliffs I walked o'er
why were they staring at me
yea crying off at my approach.
when hordes might fly at me
dig claws in my flesh
peck at sight's wincing orbs
carry remains of a man over oceans
o'er punishing surges, o'er wild crashing breakers
to swell of the billows to wails from the deep
Chorus
to the sea to the sea
the sea which is coming to me
it tells me you're paying the price
it tells me you're paying my price
to the sea to the sea
the sea which is flooding up to me
you're paying the price for the sunrise
for after the sunset comes darkness
darkness darkness darkness
darkness darkness darkness
making my way to a place called caerfai
where a red sandstone gash veins the stone
further along the sands two rocky pillars
one forms a natural throne
sitting high up there I wonder
has anyone sat here before
a celtic coast watchman
who scanned the horizon
for long ships of sea wolves
afloat on caresurges
suddenly out on the curve of the whalesway
a snarling beaked prow might appear on the sea
Chorus
on the sea on the sea
the sea which is coming to me
it tells me you're paying the price
it tells me you're paying my price
to the sea to the sea
the sea which is flooding up to me
you're paying the price for the sunrise
for after the sunset comes darkness
darkness darkness darkness
darkness darkness darkness
i took a stroll down to caerbwdy bay
where purple stones basked on the beach
cathedral cliffs carved in aztec slab features
stood just beyond the sea's reach
there at the edge of the tide line
which frolicked and lapped at my feet
this melody freely ran into my head
as phantom white sea horses
rose up, then vanished deep
wed to the glistering skin of the flood
while the sound waves I heard
in my blood, could be seen
in cannon pulsed breakers of musical sea
Chorus
in the sea in the sea
the sea which is coming to me
it tells me you're paying the price
it tells me you're paying my price
to the sea to the sea
the sea which is flooding up to me
you're paying the price for the sunrise
for after the sunset comes darkness
darkness darkness darkness
darkness darkness darkness
river tees poetaster 1968 vintage
emerald green tees
cream foam mountains decorate
rainbow slick slime trails
the tide goes out the
tide comes in
stranded bubbles
winking at her brim
are these migrants
field
flocks speckled ribbons streaming
birds so soon away
Mount Bermo Timbo 2008
Prophet trousered Press
*Poems written by Mount Bermo Timbo (T. E. Davies)The licence encourages you to copy and distribute the poems, with the complete unedited text, images and licence links or texts. You just name the author. (Creative Commons licence logo link below!)
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Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK:
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Mount Bermo Timbo (T. E. Davies) 2008
