Bastille Day

writing in two columns not

the tiny words of the Brontës not the slanting

desk of Austen not

the dance of ink that

Plath seemed to do

not the lists and

hand drawn maps of

Orwell not a dead

brothers notebook

where is my voice when

I stare at these

margins in dark

light which river

should I cross these

words with who’s

shore do I heap them on

the cobblestone

is pregnant outside

her home like some

kind of apparition

a living house a dead

house we looked for ghosts

for her

ghost and found a

wild garden no

not even that

someone else's home

that we were staring at

motion

time

discovering words already

dead when I read them

what is this landscape

pits rivers

railways rocks

the wildness of urbanity

these streets

don’t feel like mine

they are everybody

else’s I shall adore

every footstep

each is holy

even I

am holy 

this ten tonne

tongue hot slag

a harmonica that

beats the vivid pulse

the howl of a train

whistle

this swarm of text

gathered 

conned into

being between these

library walls

history or something

similarly magnetic

what is history anyway

all these twisting

contexts licked clean

with academic prowess

using words in a way

I can’t quite reach

just my fingertips

not my fat hands

that want to

squeeze and pry

and pinch

green and brown

time and moss Blake’s grave

I place my penny

except its 2p

disturbing the

symmetry of strangers

a thankfulness that

the rain understands

but not the screaming

german child climbing

in the tree beside me or

the squirrel in the bin

rooting through our lazy

detritus

the more facets I inspect

and magnify explore

the more

I see everyone not

just my chosen heroes

but those who’ve hurt me 
used me tore me

broke me so many versions

of myself

sketches

written right to left

counterbalance

like the thick cement bricks on the crane

standing like an awkward

insect in a building site

all floors no walls

grey and slow

revealing

a building born

naked

our interiors

filling filling filling

time a small girl

these streets are every

metaphor 

night a simile

when none is needed

we are transient as

stone suddenly still

I am a burial

ground

pennies in a line blue plaque

suicide scream

I am none of your words

and none of mine

I twisted and

glistened at your

pages kissing the

glass between the walls

the doors

these matrixes are mouths

dripping down an escalator into the

moving margins of

trains

this city starts to come

alive in my mind

it’s callouses and curves

let’s count the mortgages

the yoga mats the

bikram yoga bitches

and their almost

debt free lives polarity

is a plum in my mouth

its not that their

different but that

were almost the

same these degrees

of difference only

degrees

hidden gardens

we smelled (you smelled)

that honeysuckle 

on my tiptoes to see

the yellow breath of

it’s shape

we are constant

in motion

thought

always weaving

weaving weaving

a door

that shouldn’t be in

front of me Sylvia

yours

death is mainstream

it’s a big river

one you nor I can

navigate

sky captain

earth captain

anchors tattooed in

our skin

I find my flaws 

close enough to reach them

pass a paper finger over

their berth

lost a little in this

world of dead poets

other realness in the fields

waiting like hay bales

heavy and collected

rapunzel's library

salvage (part two)

It was a fevered sweat that woke her.The bare bulb gulped into light, the coil of tungsten purring into an incandescent blur. It hung from the ceiling swinging gently as the breeze from the open window compelled it into a pendulum like dance. The emulsion was still wet, the smell permeated everything. She stroked the skirting boards noticing a few brush hairs caught in the gloss. The brushes were laid out where she’d left them, milky water dripped off the bristles onto the pages of an old newspaper.  The curtains were neatly folded by the bed, dusty and mildewed. She pulled them into her lap and stroked the seams. The hooks nestled in the pleats looking like tiny Picasso ears. She began to unhook them one by one, it felt like pulling treble clefs from a sheet of music. So much undoing had happened, the paint knew it, the curtains knew it and she, she most of all knew it. Starting over, starting again had pealed all her energy.

It had been three days since the extraction. She had spent most of that time stripping the room of its ingredients. The more she took away, the more she scrubbed cleaned and painted the better she felt. Élan stroked the small scar on her finger. This was the price she had paid. Art had dripped like blood, down her palm twisting around her wrist as the man had collected it. He used an instrument that looked like a needle. It had a square nib and two small blades that looked like wings that had seemed spread out from the stem of the sunk gently into her hand. She remembered the man had pressed a small metallic disc into her palm as he did it, like some kind of twisted communion. 

She was nothing like the great artists. They had endured numerous extractions and had continued to make art. She had grown up hearing their stories. Nine Elm was her favourite, he had gone through 27 extractions eventually losing a finger to the process.  Whether it was her misguided adolescence or sheer sheer lust for life, this is why Élan had moved to the city, his city. His art was all over the walls of her borough. The authorities would scrub and clean it away but it would keep reappearing. He was a beast of a man with tattoos that twisted around his fingers over and across his extraction scars, he would pace the streets in her area lost deep in thought constantly stroking his fingers.

Élan lived three blocks away from Nine Elms. The nine elms he had planted were still young trees. The oldest was 9yrs. He had been one of the first test subjects and had been imprisoned until the i.i floated on the stock market. He’d become a local hero and for that reason the authorities kept him under close watch.  His original works of art, especially those created after his first extraction were collected and destroyed. But his myth perpetuated and it suited the needs of the elite to let it, people thought they could beat the system and were therefore more willing to volunteer for an extraction. After all it wiped out all of your debt and that of your loved ones. The rules were complex and protocols were strictly adhered to. Most people put their name on the list at aged 16 which is the earliest you can. Research had shown that is when money means the most to people with just the right amount of naivety to paper over the cracks of what exactly they would be surrendering. This is exactly what Élan had done.

questions

who am i

whom's

context is a skin I'm in 

skin

I'm in

this excess

excess

con den

sation

a drip drop

a shower a storm

perception portioned and

re-portioned

of charity

of giving

of 

this tapestry of tongues

sentient

are words sentient

when we speak them?

if it's beyond my own interest

can I feel it

can I feel

what I omit

my limits connect 

and contribute

am I responsible for the rain

do I

grow momentary roots a kind of

cultural 

relativism

help me look 

look up from this desk

its stain

I 

am 

I am morally responsible 

for more than I can see

this 

is not a contract

I have inherited 

advantages disadvantages

omens

asymmetry

our unequal 

bodies

dear affiliate

the death of me

it's accent surrenders fallibility

I am allowed pleasure

I am allowed

to be

intensely alive

a verb is an abstract

theorist

a persona

a puppet paradox

time is loss

is a gift

why wish 

for the whole thing?

time is real

i think the rain 
ached down the window

soft pedal

salvage (part one)

  

Élan did what everyone always did after an extraction. She sat down at her desk and inspected her scar. The cut was on her left hand, it was small starting halfway down her little finger and running down into her palm. The line wasn’t perfectly straight it curved like a wayward eyelash the blood had dried and darkened and a scab had started to form.  She brushed her fingers over it, it felt rough and mottled. When she clenched her fist the dull sting disappeared, when she opened up her palm and stretched her fingers fresh blood bubbled up from beneath the half formed scab and the pain was sharp and thudding. It gave her something to focus on. 

Her body was recalibrating. It was adjusting to the absence but her mind was slow to catch up.  She reached for her pen, positioning it between her fingers as she had so many times before, her thumb bolstering her grip, fingertips pressed against the black plastic. She touched the nib to the paper noticing the faint blue lines and the mathematically positioned margin. It was in the middle of this thought that something strange happened. Her head told her she had done it, that she had tricked the extraction and was writing line after line after line. She was writing so fast she wasn’t even sure what she was writing. At the same time her body, calm and efficient compelled her to follow its instructions. It was several minutes until she noticed the pen was back in the pot and her notebook had been pushed to the back of the desk. What most disturbed her was realising her hands were sunk deep into her pockets as if they had been there a while, patiently waiting for her to notice. 

She pulled her hands out of her pockets and opened the notebook to check. There was nothing there, not even an ink blot. She took the pen out of the pot and repeated her actions, this time she was acutely aware of her body’s rebellion as it disobeyed her and placed the lid back on the pen and put it back in the pot. Her throat was dry and her tongue felt swollen. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten. She made her way to the small shared kitchen keeping her head down and demeanour suitably cold in order to prevent any kind of conversation with the other tenants in the block.  She found some rye bread in her cupboard and poured a small amount of olive oil and balsamic vinegar into a coupette that still faintly smelt of whiskey. She carried her food back to the room, laid it out on her desk and tore a small square of rye bread off dipping it into the dressing. The balsamic vinegar smeared up the glass and drizzled over the edge dripping down the rim. She chewed slowly enjoying the sharpness of its taste. 

The syringe played on her mind, such a strange device. It wasn’t really a syringe but she didn’t know what else to call it. She tore another piece of rye bread off and dipped it, swirling the dark ink like colour of the vinegar and trying to make it blend with the oil. The walls of her room were covered in prints, paintings and photographs, a few small collages and a couple of vintage posters. Above her desk was her favourite print a pencil drawing by Liu Dan. It was a pencil drawing of a flame in preparation for a larger body of work. It mesmerised her, billowing in and out, twisting, unraveling in constant motion in a perfectly still picture. The feeling rushed up her throat, she ran to the small sink by the door and vomited what looked like muddy river water into the bowl. She twisted open the cold tap and watched it swill down the plughole. She splashed water onto her face and cleaned her hands. She glimpsed herself in the mirror pale and sweaty. She opened a window and moved to the bed lying on top of the duvet. She closed her eyes leaning her head back onto two neatly piled pillows and felt the evening breeze flicker across her face. The only thing that comforted her was the bare bulb and the plain white ceiling. There was something about that clean uncluttered space.

When she cast her eyes around the room, glimpsing the objects in it, the urge to vomit surged through her body. She gulped gently, fixing her eyes on the ceiling. This was how she fell asleep staring at the tungsten coil focusing on the faded white ceiling, she knew what she had to do and in the morning she would begin.

without words

9 x 9

she	breathes	through	the	pulsing	cracks	of	her	mouth
breathes	deep	the	dark	honour	of	her	aching	calm
through	the	light	she	follows	time	unstuck	and	motionless
the	dark	she	soothes	quietly	telling	fearless	tiny	lies
pulsing	honour	follows	quietly	hiding	untold	secrets	fading	effortlessly
cracks	of	time	telling	untold	truths	find	form	effigies
of	her	unstuck	fearless	secrets	find	her	helplessly	unravelling
her	aching	and	tiny	fading	form	helplessly	surrenders	her
mouth	calm	motionless	lies	effortlessly	effigies	unravelling	her	sadness

For all the Annie's and Arthur's

a worker

strides across the room

the backs of sculptures

"lime-wood" she tells me

bronze afterglow a dirty gold

chiselled dents

that look like fish scales

she is skin

and trees and love

what the mother

means to us

each "I" an abstracted

perspective like the Lichtenstein

that made you smile

what the mother

means to us

arms wrapped around a baby

looking at old ladies wishing

we were old ladies

content and curious

content and curious as she

pulls

her fender apart until the strings

curl into magnetic fields

magnificent

like Descartes

duality of light

in a dark sweaty room saying

"sorry" to the stage

and the cables on the floor

that thick ripped sky

split and bled

by bombs that turned

Rimbaud's words

into dust so he could

dance

in the margins of this room as she smiles

spits waves screams sings begs our

broken throats to bellow

unravelling in cascades

of "be free" "be free"  "be free"

Memphis Toffee Bees

in the twist

he is

one ragged curl

rare

unclogged

bitten through despairing time

ten troughs air an aged tongue

blackened stone a gnomon's trick

lacked a monk

a no mans lick

Faustus you have flimmed the tale

turned it on it's broken head

a careful sway

an upturned pulse

your vulgar ache has dulled to bliss 

 

 

This is offered as part of dverse poets Logophilia 1. There's plenty of playing with words, in the twist he is. Mephistopheles becomes Memphis Toffee Bees,  ten trough air an aged tongue is an anagram of the line before it. There's a made up word in there, another anagram and some general tom foolery with words.

Sisyphus and cinquains

her knot of skin fell loose

writhing in a holy lump
ground that stroked her face 

held my feet

an introduction 
between trembling

my name and hers

flaws 
refine our permanence

here on this grass

shit on my shoe

blood on her lip

Oh Massachusetts

what is it I'm without

into the curled embrace of dissonance

wrists outstretched

a permanence in this wind

tattooed into my secret tongue

eternity 

into time

when I talk about 

what I don't believe in

my disloyalty 

I am not tied

to Sisyphus and cinquains
Browning's edge
and mine
our syllables gleaming

we are not a thesis

I sit here in the drift of jaws

mouths without mouths

jobs immune to the blue note bottleneck of slump

silhouettes in suits

twinges and

crag hearts 

totem poles

our fading compasses

our typewriters in the brilliant light of dawn

hemmed into a line a stuttering army of consciousness

arising like the wet dew meets my feet

incense 

it's staccato breath a strange calligraphy

cocooned in a trance like serpentine song

twisting into the room

DNA dog ends of dignity disappearing into the

warm air of night

monogrammed skin

pleated into splintering cloth

names cast into the light

Helios and Apollo in a brothel of calm 

are we tender

brutal illuminations 

a thesis a carcass craving for a calling

hover like doves 

amongst the fog of many

many if's

this family of forged forbearing

pressure

pressure pressure

valves that stimulate forgiveness

the lampshade knows

to stay perfectly still

and the towels still dry 

and

my heart still beats and 

this language wraps around the throat of this word 

this word

(spaces between)

it was never one voice

a cacophony of splintered charcoal on his back

the constant shadow of rain an endless beat 

compassion 

is a lexis 

only limited by diffraction

obstacles and microscopes

an ashtray full of sand

in a time before machines

nan madol

(spaces between)

he's my 1966 Judas

the night barks 

it really does

sound hollowed out of the silence of quiet lives

feet on pavements 

cracking the ground with sharp heels

punctuating concrete with lens flare clarity

how we blur

melt meld

still wanting definition

we are ink

soaking into paper compassion 

is a lexis the guts of a poem

nan madol

an endless beat

blue

morpheus butterfly

or the monarchs that migrate

from August till the first frost

a perforated cycle 
of generations

seed and spore

we are ink

soaking into paper

hierarchy of space

I hail a bus

my hand 

cupping the air sideways leans two 

confident fingers into the road

my body semaphore

I am metope 

daughter of Doric 

and because Nelson beat Bonaparte

I am pulled from the Parthenon

this dirty street it's

bank holiday blues

wet from the pockmarked rain

stuttering on the tarmac

orphaned white marble

1821

these colonnades so lonely

I hail a bus

my hand 

cupping the air sideways leans two 

confident fingers into the road

Elgin

his hungry eyes and disappearing

nose knows

Byron billows his contempt

both

Harrow boys

I hail a bus 
a Harrow girl

my hand 

cupping the air sideways leans two 

confident fingers into the road

I am footnotes

here's to the peace 
of walking
through an empty car park pausing 
at the lonely war memorial a starshock
of marble pointing upwards to a
blue blue sky
I am footnotes
in a small font
at the bottom of a page
I am fake sonnets and dandelions
or is that somebody else
am I somebody else when I'm in these
words and
these words are
in me 
little vignettes
this orchestra of concrete and light
naked flagpoles pose like 
white silhouettes
people talk 

about balancing

here's to the peace

of unoccupied spaces

how my feet

how they sound without other sounds around them

people talk

about balancing

aubergines

"Lucian" written on the wall
in pencil
tiny brass studs
stick out from the square pavement
as if to suggest
these are the seams
of the city
bouquets of twisted metal bloom across the top of faded red gates
that old padlock
swinging like a pendulum
boxes of aubergines
that look like
genetically modified tears
the grocers stand cries fat purple tears
I start to notice how many cables and pipes run through this station
the chaos
and the confluence of it all
I cry fat purple tears and think about
Raj's favourite god his matted hair the Ganges
flowing from it
time is an ornament on his head
let all our blue throats groan
what poison
what poison we have swallowed
cry with me fat purple tears
let rivers roll from our hair
lets write our names in pencil
stitch ourselves
to these streets
the chaos and
the confluence of it all