Something heavy between the blackberry and the funnel web
cracked out of the sun’s heel
feeds the hornet’s whisper of death
bat rites trick in the dusk
more diary poems
semaphore wind chimes echo nuclear locations.
You and I grow old like tea and whisky
we follow the secret pathogens littering the sailor’s path
smiles unfold in a horror-scope of favourites closed up against
each new direct debit obligation.
POORLY RECIEVED
Lighting flash sink bulb weed in the outhouse /
the finger tap
of bee hitting window / it’s war outside / eat porridge stay out of the sun / theory based alchemy / lachrymose compensation procedure / as that is what it is / try harder / belched the scrap heap / scratching towards the sprinkler / it’s a heavy war / try harder / always please your best efforts only / effortless / as it may seem / this was as good as it got / fierce delivery / powder cakes / attrition / dead men on an island / south pacific / burning lawns / urban myths / orange squash / re-uptake inhibitors / gather at dusk / in the shade of the baobab tree / trust them / they are your friends / like the cloak of ambiguity / that you must wear / at all cost.
Multitasking in the multiverse / now isolate the bee’s breath / carrier bags of wisdom / litter the cluttered north London flat / when police broke in / they found the body / in an advanced stage / of decomposition / next witness / chimes bell at crow call / ambient methods without being sullen / hypnotise / the sprinkler / do you want some / dangerous dog lover / when the rain pours in through your eyes / then out of the mouth / a carved gator / tincture of cannabis infused with elderflower /
caught out by the ebb tide /
Peace fractured at last
a brokered silence breaks out
Wind slams the patio door
dragging the bricks
Courtship innuendo
the puffed up collar of a mating pigeon
Like an Edwardian ruff
staging a tragedy by the ponds negotiating
Crumpled cans from 700 million light years hanging out for the UHF
Daily message playing chess in another galaxy
formalism and entropy
At the edge of language
to infinity and beyond was not what Foucault said
it’s a marmite philosophy
leave a trail of reference points in case we get lost
10 minutes concentrated effort now sleep for an hour
500 words a week the future’s bright the future
Is purple and red and coming in at 300 km an hour
Most have evacuated or at least dug a hole of language
So deep that exhumation is impossible
Throat-warblers Bee eaters Californian King Fishers have all been
Sighted way off their normal migratory paths the world’s on fire
They say you smell of frozen food and colossal waste your mind
does not correlate with anything real or rational and yet you are safely fed in streamers bunting animal lights and gorgeous cheeses.
So redecorate and move on ignite in glorious splendour those technicolour treats
That prove you are not alone but part of a collective whole. The obliterated seascape is your home horizon.
THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO PAY
Inside this living heart will you know how and when to cheat death / and could it then be said we are travelling faster than the sun / what is rounder and more orange than blades flexing against the light / breaking entry against hot warped bodies grazing in sandy fantasy / so gird against the second wave / or subsequent waves / our warm bloodied frenzy heals against the distance we have come / from misery terrace / musk lynx and half chewed fish bones eek out an existence / this triumphant Shangri-la / was built from scaffolding and shrewd divestments of aggregate / now skimming low across the sea bed / azure fronds folding and all eels and shoals / spear in hand / floating somewhere in the med / Neptune they called me / down at the local bar / just an old lemon turning Larkin / pressing against grey flabby bottoms / on such a perfect roll / even Kleinzahler couldn’t take it away / all cyclopean walls and Scops owls whacking it down in one great big dollop / there are other ways to pay they said.
WAIT ANOTHER HOUR
behind schedule
the clock ticks over the horizon
you can barely walk
Taken by wonder
across an Atlantic of fear
Not knowing or trying to know
About being in the world today
Transported by muses thrown
Time travelling mucus muscle at night on the
Nuclear thrust of brand-new pain
The tooth’s ache
Skiing memory lines
Carving a heavy weft
Like glassy foot prints
God’s light, the light of the Gods’.
Slipping into something like memory praxis
The overwhelming passions of high cholesterol
Sorcery flower dump cat glance askance sly
Controlling whiskery street profits
Taste the bitter due sap over toxic coffee conversation
When is man woman or woman man when does it conflict
With what you thought of Robocop when he says
His name at the end all suited up in under armour but
The pulled back machinations of the face give that game away
burn parallax prisms towards bends in weaponry backwards on itself
spin the gun fancy amigo style and blow your own face off
By accident.
Don’t respect the honey suckle party black out. Crushed lichen under foot squeezing juice from individual membranes that cannot be coerced however fruitful cost effect etc it may etc be.
Don’t react.
FORCE THE TOOTH
Erudite of a fashion. Sleeves worn collar up or down. Isolated wing flex slow car door compacted reformation memory twist. What swells and will swell comes forward when individual matter makes stale most division static.
Imperceptible yet frenzied account for full wash meeting points divergent nature categorical failure yet imperative nasal whizz.
Attention vehicle turning left.
Off-line impiety tracking backwards opening up the warp and weft of it. Scored hundreds by un-design picking up then tracing back; always chasing the main chance. As distinct from the unavailable or closed for now. Try again later. Sports field fire better downwards colour ways proceed to meeting point. Hold it up to the light now hieratic heirloom shadow casting succulent inlet.
Down chains
worn faces
swipe in and out
your time in total
was in giving it away.
If you wanna get into it you gotta get out of it
Sports refit muscarine drizzle over hot toffee terrine. Muscle over pesto pasta distraught mission corn flight mistrustful of green revenge. Wash out the blood mouth distant boring drilling into the heart of what? Coaxial levers bent throating out ominous white crested daily birds.
The psychedelic episode comes with don’t force it the man who slept to death. Unable to move thinking got to mow the lawn got to…. Unload the washing machine and then the revelation you can do this you’ve got this clawed up to do it yeah it’s possible, no wait read some Roy Fisher stop write it up no wait stop read another thing something new you can. All the while time slipping away the schedule the belief the making it the discordant sounds circular fascinating all leading away from.
The washing. The grass. The day. Your blood.
UNEMPLOYABLE
Light bathed in sweat
cut cancel or cure? Each rich conspiracy sits in meltwater.
And then when the noise rises up to greet us it’s already all over.
waiting for a new poetry to arrive an opportune moment
to commence yoga. Lonely blood vessels make shift ornery drift shoot
bloody ankle fuser a.k.a The Distance Man.
Cop three lines on a stolen photograph.
Clash of poor recordings dialogue manhandled Dictaphone clicking feedback
arclight fathom dust quest distilled each one on the shelf
quiet
gift consumption consumed after they died of consumption
pleurisy a gift gas re-emitted after the emittance
stolen chomping movements food about the mouth falling
gross like goblets cone beacons fresh bacon beckons
willing it so
willing. It so.
And we want them to turn around at the end and say,
“No, that wasn’t it at all.”
After all.
