David Pollard has written an excellent review of my Erbacce Press chapbook, ‘dying notes’ which Helen Ivory has been so kind to publish today on Ink Sweat & Tears.
http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=12031
I am too old, too young,
too woman, too androgyne,
too straight, too gay, too
excessive,
too wise, too clueless, we are
too slow, too love,
too soft, too sore. Too
lacking,
too failing
to follow standards
to
irrelevance.
We conjure atoms. Power over unenforceable formidable atoms because. We are afraid. Hiroshima saved many lives reports western history books…well. Tell that to. I am thinking of. A woman still angered over the heat. The radioactive earth and flesh. Why’s she still pissed people would ask as they ask about childhood’s ravage. I did nothing I wasn’t entitled to do. Said the security officer unbuckling uniforms over his daughter. Fear is. What it is. A boomerang. An industry built upon toy handcuffs sadomasochism. An industry. How many lives they say. Say. Epidermal peeling people molting. Chameleons. Say.
if i had known
if i had only known
that when i met you
you were already in
the final decade
and had only
three hundred million seconds
before the noose
i would have filled those
few million we shared
with something other than
exposing your flaws
and calling you a child
who refused the adult state
like i was the nation’s
biggest grownup
if i had realised
if i had only guessed
that it was no cry for help
no throwing of the toys
but a grave marker
at my feet as we walked
and there’s another one
but i never saw it
i’d have done what
it took no matter what you needed
beyond the scream of duty
just as now i’d do anything
to jam my boot in time’s door
and claw another chance
to haul you out
of wherever you were
Painful for
you to look so
deep
at your own image
in the water.
Painful for
me to push
you so near
the edge of the
pond you might fall
in, though if you
did there would be no
more tortuous
reflection, only
the darkness,
your friend.
Having ruined
my life with
an unfair mark,
she bore the seepage
of opprobrium
in my own mind, along
the Plan B path
I finally saw as
preferable
to the yellowing groves
she spared me.
She died this week,
long forgiven.
(The devil’s
job to
forgive myself.)
Bored mums of the future, carry on
swigging cola and not wearing Armani –
more like crimson lurex
or velour jumpsuits –
taking a threesome selfie
your stick a liability
to floss-munching strollers,
and so ‘big-boned’ you hardly
squeeze in the frame
but smiling, stretching your mugs
at some unheard ribaldry
and ah bah nuvva snapfa luck?
this slategrey October Saturday
where the carousel blindly rotates
the organ whirls on to nightmare
the gulls cawcawcaw and glare as though
we’re all of us nothing more or less
than future carrion
Retiré – – –
pace, pace, pace and de-mi-rond.
Duck!
Keep your head down.
Now up and
click!
Catch this
click
and clickclickclick
next breakfasttablespitypic
shock is short – set aside. Pass the butter.
Continuez
Oops! –
There goes another hack
whose shoulder cam was no bazooka
but can you tell in fog?
Click!
Repetez
Have HD-seen all that
have seen too much
for da da da
da-duck
apocalypse is now
reality copies celluloid
but car doors ignorant
don’t block projectiles
Fouetté! – – –
Pas de boucher
Thanks,
but yet
no barbecue for me
don’t show me fire
can’t see no smoke
since Sirte blossomed
spectacular roses
invading the sky
when earth is Jahannam
don’t bother to duck
grill ain’t grill
but flesh is flesh, served
to no god
flash-eyelenseye
no one to see
Now, traversez!
cross the sea
saluez
(sauté! sauté! sauté!)
nobody intends to build a…
View original post 400 more words
Sleep – under bridges – sleep
outside warehouses – sleep on
the streets – sleep in the queue
for England (where my relatives
live) – sleep – Do you know
I really can’t remember the
last time when I did.
It all started with besuited newsreaders
sniggering while reporting a massacre:
anchors passed it on to correspondents
who passed it on to interviewees
who infected millions of viewers.
A neurologist compared it to the plague
in Tanganyika, ’62, but was crying before
he could finish. His po-faced colleague
diagnosed mass psychogenic illness
but farted before she’d finished too,
as if hysteria had to escape somehow.
No one could stop themselves:
the Chancellor couldn’t take his cuts
seriously; the PM declared war
as if he were inviting everyone to a party;
brass bands snorted at the cenotaph,
historians and students at history;
Alzheimer’s and cancer were side-splitting
for untreated patients and their families.
Refugees turned back, scared of contagion.
Parliament dissolved for the election
in fits of posh giggles. There were reports
of voters dying, their hearts exhausted
by comic speeches, promises like jokes,
an outbreak of national hilarity
as unending…
View original post 2 more words
mary and john
are dry inside
the box.
look closely
she has an umbrella
too.
double assurance.
sbm..
