FRIGHT NIGHT

 

I needed to shock my Self out of anxiety

Running off to plunge into cold water

The first cry of the day from the child two doors down

Is like the dawn of creation

Builders hammer out in chorus 

 Sheets of green parakeets fly off at once 

 Sounds merge like the elements in a Feldman score

Rubbing up against each other in the dark

In a restored church  we sat 

In silence suspended from steel beams

On a Saturday getting dark earlier now 

Intense meditation from acts of small delicacy

Provoking rough storms of thought

Hovering in the architrave 

Thickening grey black clouds over Balfron

We were young we are younger still now

Fuck sex fuck everything that moves.

  

I eat a lot of eggs to stay alive

They lie there in the darkness egg-candescent 

Glowing like past acquaintances 

Staring out of the night

WITNESS JEHOVAH !

 They knock at the door it is 

Their mission but not mine to receive

The poorly produced leaflet

Of time worn aphorisms that don’t really work

For most people on this street

Who are mainly Muslims or don’t care

Or are lost and found 

Who have not addressed the conscious task of uniting

Finitude with infinity to forge an expression of the Self

That is compatible with the hostilities of a warming biosphere

Flex the bionic muscle make haste while the sun shines 

The window cleaner is here again

Rejoice in God’s love

If you can

It is free.

 

 Truth talks in tongues

Light moves through time

Don’t think too hard

About what you haven’t got

It never goes away

The memory of being born

Is no more real 

Than today’s headlines

About how the economy

Grew by 0.1 %

High summer in Leyton

The bins stink

Of rotting fruit

The sun bores down

Mercilessly 

On a civilisation in decline

 

Gnomecore

 

Greet the day like a warrior

Elastic coated hard faced

Driving a truck that’s as tall as a skyscraper

Looking down navigating the roads

Genesis was there with some others

Pass the batons choke on smoke

Face caked in defiance plastered all over

Protesting our liberty

Coagulating crimson crust forms around the mouth

Puffing fury sputters

Lurching and leering 

Fabulous folly in an orchard of rotten fruit

Must we fixate on the distillation of hate

Can we not just forage for fun

Like we used to when

We were stupid and young

Full of idiot joy

Rolling in the hay of our uncertainty

Without a single care

In the roly-poly world

Now we must walk blindfolded through

Liveable lives as if on a tight rope

Which threatens to snap

Alligators snap at our heals

 

To sustain our dreams beyond the anxious

Garden path  we line our hearts with sun baked aquatic ornaments

Snails climb the back of a faded plastic mermaid

Who smiles demurely in a cheap elusive way

How many winter frosts have those forgiving breasts endured 

The tangled netting folds into the hollow of the pond

A naughty gnome flashes ignominiously

Worms wriggle effortlessly selflessly

Knowing their purpose is to wriggle

We dig in short of brain cells

Hard consciousness breathes against the time

This field craft of ours

Lies across the day

Backs on fire

Lost in the flex of bone and muscle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 POEM FOR PRYNNE

 

Tangled web of night

you forced me over star bright

menthol spears steered towards the mind gate

mimic the reflex image moored in more than motions aspect

rusting against an old iron fence leading into an empty field of meaning so small in increments like meagre savings

accumulating slowly in a wren’s heart brittle after morning’s frost

don't ask what does it mean, but how do I feel now ?

after all this life has happen without my will

thrown as we are

clowns all dancing on the edge of the sink

spend a lifetime carving out a cave of words

sitting in the chance equations of the library

sketching a world fit to live for

 dancing into outer space

a Bhodisattva riding the rails 

eye’s watering at the spectacle

of all it has been all it will be forever

what the words unlock is immobilising thought in favour of a vehement perplexity

you knew this and let it flower into thoughts braced by the sound of air

moving in and out of the lungs

breathing at last.

 

 

STEAMING

Another day to break the glass stand poems against the horror of forever poor but we should be grateful they say the ones that know the truth ? of inherited wealth but that’s unkind is it not reframe refreeze repackage reimagine the world every day to paint a better picture youth is steaming energy without revolutionary direction once again like the riots its ok they’re only teenagers but if they really knew what power they had that is what scares the higher ups shit could actually change smash down the walls lights go out as Paul Weller sang all those years ago when we were in the grip of another tyranny that does not seem so bad now so force the voice out and skim through a host of yet more ridiculous jobs that we will never get another slippery algorithm runs through our fingers drawing them up like a bunch of unspooled time running away unreal city over and over again keep going don’t look back explore the inner most but retain a hard shell and sell sell sell to come back home again and bask in sweet ennui wrapped around like a blanket against the tv’s glow and the grip of a small hot hand that does not yet know the cruelty of the world.