Verse 2:

 

Crowley used the word magic but I say we call chaos our latent friend.

 

And where I cannot explain

 

understand this bone mother we spoke to,

 

we played cards

 

to save our life.

 

We were trying to lose.

 

But when we were fed, we knew

 

we had hit gold

 

In the black-draft of sweet tooth affection

 

lies beneath the ice flow

 

of who we will choose.

 

Our understanding has become dwarfed

 

as we have grown to multiples and dimples

 

while we walked this earth.

 

The concepts we are given are not enough.

 

We know too much

 

and yet not enough to escape this penury of repetition

 

same faces places. The garden we planted.

 

The path that we know.

 

The grey stone that’s no match.

 

The dance

 

between the known and the unknown

 

into the love that lives in the sky.

 

 If you don’t ask you will never know

            as if tiredness

where naked nothings grow green

       not in common 

with other diamonds excuse of clutches 

responding ripples outside temperature shadow flux

vault through high windows

 

experience pity as a storm 

 

today perhaps us nowhere

 The bench by the exit at Tesco piled high with unwanted books

mostly shit but today a wall of faux leather bound black volumes 

that threaten to buckle it. On closer inspection they are a full set of Encyclopaedia Britannia and at once I feel sad and nostalgic. Nobody wants these cumbersome volumes anymore. Now you can clarify disputed facts in seconds on phone. I pick up one of these unweildy volumes and flick at random. Precious knowledge once confined to the school library or well healed families that could afford the down payment. Diagrams, etchings and the occasional colour plate. That thistle logo on the spines all signify a long past era of slow learning less pressure more time to breath, perhaps.

 WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW

They say write about what you know

I choose death, but it could have easily

been life.

What do I know about death?

Is it the reason I’m writing this thing?

Can one know death?

Or is life just getting acquainted with 

the idea of death?

What legacy is this 

these

small waves 

that lap at the edge of the bed

true crime confessionals ecstatic mornings 

hurry past the sober sun rise.

Near a pagoda by a lake

bird noise from the bushes

iridescent despair slides under life’s gravity

unless it’s kept in check

chaos will reign

opportunist gulls are investment bankers

they inhabit the air with stucco violence

such alchemy such an assault

the pain strikes three 

a black noise is hauled across the sky

we look up.

 The banished king returns

each week a new pint of lager

watch the golden bubbles rise 

billfolds spill luxury cheese

and onion at your feet resplendent 

now that’s bleach for you.

Arrived too late for an unfixed heart

pulmonary in his prime slowed to

a thick trickle on stage hands

formed a cross looks upward

shavasana out through the window

each lateral gestation swipes out

for botanic shade the hothouse ghost

wheeled round demure one leather 

had clasps a cane your empire

came this way fruiting delusion

out of book shop vibrations

the rarefied airs career poets

breath so well.

 

Carved faces no maybe book ends

evaporate make cordial balm

darkening rust crumbs from the table 

a black dog grins human like

rough stems recoil from greenhouse 

heat hovering moon isle seek

majestic biscuit sift billow roll

turn side extend

and release.

 BURN SOME OLD BILLS

Lost it all to some I-cloud brunch

folk devil all twisted up from booze

mangled rotten insides stupendous fork in the road.

that will teach it to think 

all sparkled up bruised ripe business

ripe for plucking

let’s go there 

no here no there

call up everyone

smack the gin off peak

clean up wipe off

you’re done here

have a piece of paper

sunny day melatonin feast

strike shoes on peeling into winter.

 

 VERY FEW KILLER WHALES HUNT LIKE THIS

 

“Make it magical”, for God’s sake!

Blood iodine reconfigure the rolled stone. It walks and talks. Free to squander everything from sheer lyrical delivery. Rub ointments over national grief light the litmus paper. Inspired by terrible muses’ dream talk so the day begins.

Hovering while drones wander about filming. What unimaginable reality could we inhabit somewhere else? Talking over diversions we slide laterally into bandit country. Sweating up the gravelled veldt; hoping the tyres will hold out. 

It’s all talk of course unless it’s making money talk. Scratch the track of the owl bedridden tourniquets bloom upon new build efficiency. The hotels are fully booked. The grip tightens on the leash, dogs lurch at you every time you pass; suspicious and aggressive. Like the police at the roadblock, don’t run anybody over the say, benevolent gun fingers' twitching. Distracted without an alibi in the act of accumulating; these are the dividends of language, on this the dullest day. They say the corgis will miss her the most