bare bones



Photo Copyright: James Rainsford. Used with Permission.



receipt roll messiah

steam punk chimera

God of catalogues

and credit checks

hollowed be my name

your strip mall come

your bill be won

in parliament

as it is in tax havens

give us this day our 10% percent off

forgive us our store points

lead us not to customer services

for thine is the system

the power and the profit

take my skin

in lieu of payment

see me as I am

with an armful of appliances

spine curved to the longing 

for emptiness and overdrafts

hatch me from the bones of your boardrooms

forever

and ever

amen

his loneliness my heartbeat

Atenolol his heart his heart
morning moves
in chinos and hem lines
multi storey car park
new brick slick economy of
virtue
pencil skirt smirk
hush now inbetweeners
spirit level schizophrenics
tip the bar
zip lipped sleeping bag
his home his home
Graham you have my fathers name
Tegretol he drinks he drinks
sinks into the lowest of his murmurs
cider by the litre thick with love
no needles
dual carriageway
Hemmingway without the Dakari's
he calls me a good girl, a lezzy
a sweetheart, his M4
assault rifle memories
numbed by the gasp of death he chose to take
intake
and take again
wrists scarred by the fat belly of our
indifference
how we hope
with rope with rope
he lives
she is my love,
cupped in corporate hands, I do not own her, rent her or expect her to love but she does this perpetual agreement a peace a slice amongst a maelstrom of lengthening
bullshit hits me like a skin stripped revelation of grace laced with a kiss so sweet you'd beg me to share it she loves she loves no tide no pull no shitstorm a calm autumn late summer grew our quiet bones stitched me open the horizon of a city car park watermarked pages pure porous pull me in and in
I think thick through this hope
I think thick
through this hope billowing
blue stars and my
throat

my cannibal

dust me into the soft dawn
fingers like lathes
we are all
carpenters
I flick
cigarette ash
onto the concrete pavement it falls
like a paintbrush
an old man fresh from the temple
blends it into a canvas
of earth and sky with his worn
down sandal, his slight stoop
the way
he limps
a sore hip or
just age giving shape to my detritus
this morning the bins
shook their fists as their throats
emptied into the dislocated
jaw of a machine
held for a moment
in metallic arms
then swiftly gulped, crushed
my street cannibalising itself and
me regurgitating
me

June 1961

I remember steam leaving
I was present in the particles
a guttural coo of air
draining from the bleed holes
side rods, valve gears, pistons
abstracted by the cautious hand
of post war capitol
June 1961
cut from the dying lungs
of the lower don valley
voltage
advancing down the branch lines
eager electrons
perpetuated
by circuitry and the unravelling cocoon of suburbia
metro-land
stitched to the machine of pinstriped pay checks
magnetic north of square mile sailors
everything
atomised around it
a complex
cobweb of commuters
neatly packaged in
8 car parades of necessity
weight of a man
leaning on a dead mans handle

pizzicato punks

anvil marriages
in flux bebop polemics
poli tick tick ticks
I'll demean it Charlie
you, me and Kansas City
boroughs borders bowed
to medieval guilds
privilege smuggled
beneath parliamentary prowess
high res spec
ulation
even Atlee sighed
but we
are vectors
walking bass lines
complex
syncopation straying
from cathedral steps
beyond that one square mile
ricocheting splinters
above the heads of aldermen and mayors
altered incubators
fingers curled around the neck
pizzicato punks
scroll to endpin
four quarter notes
to the bar

make your own mantra

A 9th century Nagaraja Guardstone from Sri Lanka on display at the V&A

catacomb womb

a 

plutonic self creation

an igneous

anatomy

hip thrust

atibanga

beatnik

naga raja

candlestick

purna ghata

teardrop in an upturned denture

Allen Ginsberg’s bowels

cat a comb

womb


a
plu
tonic self creation

an
igneous
anatomy

hip thrust

atibanga

beatnik

naga raja

candlestick

purna ghata

teardrop in an upturned denture

Allen Ginsberg’s bowels

fell fall fell

how the unsure wind

widens

just studs

the bare embankment

mottled

past tense pageantry

the parallels

parallels find no friction

just the smooth slow

slide of a manufactured

curve

clean you see clean

tidy

today the clouds

look like callouses

bruised by the skin

of the sky

and when that sun sets sets

sets split ends

whisper it

split ends copper strands

cross linked polyethylene

insulated orators

we are

insulated orators

What to call it?

those disparate streams David 
they ribbon into twisted hums
of soliloquies made of barns
and watching barns
geometric lines
the curve of the horizon
like the cusp of something culpably 
sublime and mathematical 
I want to feel that sweat, that salt
that tornado that bent your face to it's grid
I want to logically determine the wind
your loneliness
lyrically alive in those 
carefully 
chosen
words and diatribes 
stitched between the leanness of 
narrative
meta- narrative
mid west Mecca 
meta of autonomy
the smell of burning corn
co-ordinates of culpa 
crawling through the ligaments 
of is and is
the inner worlds we knit
and knot into a hubris of longing
how we fantasize and fetishize the high of the high we wish for 
let me crack that ball
cleanly 
knowing the bend of the breeze
the pock marked tarmac
let me not know 
of straight lines
let me breathe
in the depth 
of what
is broken
imperfect 

xy

she feeds her own fiction

firm thoughts loosen their roots

disowning the dirt

the debris of change

chapters chiselled out of undertow and myth

her mind tilled

and spilled into a scar filled river

Styx, her corridors

collide in your water

she's your daughter

dancing on the welds

and bolt holes of balance

tear those womblike walls

let her break

the banks of her own self loathing

drained

by the demolishing of love

a stray

earth

current

conducts the wake

of her imagination

time

on it’s tip toes

tired of belonging

if we were profits

shapes bend

and buck stuck

to the skin of our thin

our thinnest meaning

gleaming teeth

unsheathe

echo chambers

mouths

that crowd

around the parables

of pity by committee

we pull apart

our start

and hand it to the wind

pinned

to the politics of purpose

I ache

I ache to awake

from the gloss of our loss

of our losses

she crosses

on the ballot next to

ambivalence

antipathy and rye

caustic shrugging

drugging hope

with a cautious poison

tighten your belt

accept the hand

you were dealt

by the crooked

croupier

like platelets

a soft accumulation

of stars

the obsolete sky

abundant

spitting colour

it's an odd scar

the years end

scissors snip the stitches

not knowing

how it will heal

a half smile on my skin

a rubicon

I'm unmoved

all that seems different

is the sky

trying to find it's voice

it's tongue made of Jupiter

lips poised

clinging

to an imagined shape

as each word arises

it pops

and fizzles

stuttering into a shower of sparks

a bark

of frustration

a small

pear shaped puddle

beneath the canopy

of the station entrance

the warm

orange glow of a street lamp

reflected

a flame without a candle

amongst the yellow grid

of a parking space

and suddenly i'm

thinking about Bukowski

specifically his bare feet

his one pair of shoes

his floppy laces

have I ever seen

the Edge of myself?



*last line ripped straight outta "see here, you" by charles bukowski - his line goes "you have never seen the Edge of yourself"

my paper autumn

is it fitful

the way that pleat

of peace

that corrugated hope

form canyons in your mind?

and all that growing

growing inside growing

spring inside of winter

vowels inside of nouns

your sinuous

shape

even words

undulate

they wail

silhouette and outline

what it is

and it is

it is

somehow

in this accordion fold

in this leaf

a radial spectrum

my

paper

autumn

walking into sound

Rain Dance by Tera Zajack

toward polaroid doorways

the gasping mouths

of windows

washboard walls

and yes

the rain

it's

leaning

I don't need stairs

I take the slow

slope

over cobbles that are really

stepping stones gathering to roost

I am inside the instrument

walking into sound

that mouthpiece arch

the closed

lips of memory

 

 

Offered as part of a poetics prompt challenge over at Dverse Poets inspired by the art of Tera Zajack with thanks to Brian Miller

not a poem just a shift

If I could just
get through this shift
I’d write
a poem
about something more than this station
or what people sound like
as they rush through this instrument

PA

“The Victoria line is currently part suspended between Walthamstow Central and Victoria with Minor delays on the rest of the line due to a person ill on a train at Kings Cross. Tickets will be accepted on local bus services”

I try to say it in one breath, I get as far as “person” before sucking a lungful of air in and attempting to continue

I sound
like a concertina

Take two

PA

“The Victoria line is currently part suspended (small breath) between Walthamstow Central and Victoria (small breath) with Minor delays on the rest of the line due to a person ill on a train earlier at Kings Cross (big breath try not to cough) Tickets will be accepted on local bus services”

Beep beep

Service update from service control the Victoria Line now has Severe delays I repeat the Victoria Line now has severe delays service control out

Ok..

PA

“There are currently severe delays on the Victoria Lone due to a person (due to a person what?.. )

Breathe

PA

“There are currently severe delays on the Victoria Line due to a person.. ill.. on a train earlier at Kings Cross”

A Stock
S Stock
412 hold at Aldgate please, hold at Aldgate
This is information only, please use the ticket machines
Would you like a hand?
Touch your oyster card on the yellow circle
Just push the gate
Push the gate
Push it
No not pull
Push
There is no need to speak to me like that madam
Stop swearing

PA

Please keep your belongings with you at all times and report any unattended item to a member of staff or a police officer

Beep beep

Service update from service control the Victoria line now has minor delays, minor delays, service control out.

Okay..

PA

“The Victoria line currently has minor delays due to a person ill on a train earlier at Kings Cross”

All the fours at Farringdon can you hold there please
Did you say how much is a monthly one to five?
£180.50 Sir
Just push the gate
Push the gate
Push it
No not pull
Push
Where?
Take the Metropolitan line to Finchley road, then change for the Jubilee line southbound to Westminster take the river exit you’ll see the London Eye across the water and Big Ben behind you
For St Paul’s cathedral you want St Paul’s it’s on the Central line
Last train from Baker Street departs at eleven minutes passed midnight
Your welcome

Service update from service control there is now a good service operating on the Victoria line, I repeat, a good service now operating on the Victoria line service control out

PA

“ There is a good service oeprating on all London Underground lines”

Just push the gate
Push the gate
Push it
No not pull
Push

and up

her eyelashes || driftwood splinters
in and out
with the tide withthetides 
when her
mascara runs ||  it runs like a river 
her box canyon mouth
lures wild words
just || long enough 
to tame them
with each sharp || intake of breath
she swallows || enslaves
ghostsclingtoherthroat
until the pyre || of her poem
smokes them out || and up
and up

and up

4am veins no ego

4am veins their 
extra
pulses
pith pith
push the pith 
our anodyne
mementos 
mimic the season
with less 
imagination than the trees
who's dividends 
are shared
with tarmac and tyre treads
no sell sell sell
a circle
a swell where
sacred
is transient
an eddy 
an altar
how the leaves join 
in
no ego

Neruda knew the Just Is

Neruda knew the Just Is

how it hangs

between clavicles and vowels

and illuminates the half cut city skyline

how it howls

and caws

how it sits

on a dead poets hill

and looks out

like a sentry

or an angel made of bricks

canals like slit

veins bleed

through the buildings

the tallest i

I've ever seen

blooming buds the shape of

satellite dishes

wishes

of a new age where the page

is a punch card and a key fob

Richard rolls his rizla

Richard rolls

his rizla

carefully around the cut price duty free 50 gram

pouch

of Golden Virginia

£4.20 from his man he says

I ask about his Mrs

a sigh as he sinks

into the old

brickwork beneath the dying

hanging baskets

bone

cancer chemo blood

in her urine

"Marconi Rapier missiles"

falls from his

lips

in a rhythmic haze

a glimpse

of what he was

before

they haven't considered taxidermy

currents and

crosscurrents

in the maelstrom of this vivid morning

in it's restlessness stillness beating

on the door to come in

smuggled in the tips of pencils in

the spheres of ball

point pens

verbs

and nouns congregate

a quiet coalition of corridors

arrange themselves around you

some kind of

embrace takes place

some kind of grace

offers it's hand it's window it's desk

and rests

diodes composed in rows

of uniform current

electrons speak

terminal to terminal

language seeps from cables

from chairs and tables secret

conversations machinations

they

plot

amongst the rot

of our festering values to impart their

frustrations their

observations I wish they could

speak the teak

table top and it's compadres

their

eyewitness accounts

of our

tendency to dodge profundity

in favour of ease the trees fuck

they could talk

of the way we walk...by

they haven't considered taxidermy

death by needle clean and legal

sell the heads

of the dead

to oligarchs to basking sharks

eager

to hang their status on a wall

blind

to the blood spilling drip drip drop

onto mahogany furniture

the maid wipes it clean every morning before thawing

her heart

on a radiator her needs greater

numb must drum

her pulse from time to time

an anticrime

as some might say

I don't have words, do you?