The motorway is a day beleaguered
by a bloated greedy slob of a sun,
all rolls of heat that flob and slop the skin.
Two trees without a single leaf
like arms reaching from a soily grave,
skin melted into dry bone.
A journey like the space between language and thought:
undefinable and confusing, with an end
that might be a beginning, a long sentence
of road that started with a full stop.
Saturday 30 May 2009
Friday 29 May 2009
Night One
THE EVENING SKY...
looks like a bubbleless bath running
in a pale grey room under a dead lightbulb
in a house that no-one lives in anymore,
where echoing wind stutters through the air
and the only sound is the water drowning itself.
looks like a bubbleless bath running
in a pale grey room under a dead lightbulb
in a house that no-one lives in anymore,
where echoing wind stutters through the air
and the only sound is the water drowning itself.
Summer poems/ Day One
"I need the smell of summer, I need its noises in my ear."
I pretty much hate summer a lot of the time. So logically, the thing to do is to write a poem about summer each day and night. Well, probably more like versified descriptions and babble, but oh well.
On which, here goes number one:
INTERTEXTUALITY
Someone pulls out that old cliché
– doesn’t time pass so quickly –
and like something you know so well you forget,
I remember there’s a reason things become clichéd.
but today feels like the first day of summer
even if we’re about on the second chapter,
and the sun is heavy enough to squash everything.
And maybe in a world that isn’t scripted by May Sinclair,
Harriett Frean’s parents had the right idea.
I pretty much hate summer a lot of the time. So logically, the thing to do is to write a poem about summer each day and night. Well, probably more like versified descriptions and babble, but oh well.
On which, here goes number one:
INTERTEXTUALITY
Someone pulls out that old cliché
– doesn’t time pass so quickly –
and like something you know so well you forget,
I remember there’s a reason things become clichéd.
but today feels like the first day of summer
even if we’re about on the second chapter,
and the sun is heavy enough to squash everything.
And maybe in a world that isn’t scripted by May Sinclair,
Harriett Frean’s parents had the right idea.
Tuesday 28 April 2009
Day 30
OPPOSITOLOGY
At the end of the road there's another road, therefore
it's a STUPID FUCKING PHRASE and completely void.
At the end of the road there's another road, therefore
it's a STUPID FUCKING PHRASE and completely void.
Day 29
* Out of the way so I can revise tomorrow. I think I've italicised a bit too much...
OF IDEAOLOGY
At least three times today I’ve overheard
people saying they “have no idea.”
Well I do have an idea, you know, and let
me tell you I’m really the worse off
as all I have is an idea,
circling in my mind like a simple dog
that never even comes close to chewing its tail,
is always tailing itself, hasn’t got a tale
or anything other to do
than play with itself.
I’d give you my idea
if I had any idea what it was
but now it’s merely a blob of genderless cells,
a slow drip in an abandoned rotting shack,
a knot of unrelated images dumped
in a bag of metaphors inextricably mixed.
So take your no idea and put it in
the pockets your trousers don’t have
and pray that like a condom you didn’t know split
it doesn’t grow into something you can’t imagine.
OF IDEAOLOGY
At least three times today I’ve overheard
people saying they “have no idea.”
Well I do have an idea, you know, and let
me tell you I’m really the worse off
as all I have is an idea,
circling in my mind like a simple dog
that never even comes close to chewing its tail,
is always tailing itself, hasn’t got a tale
or anything other to do
than play with itself.
I’d give you my idea
if I had any idea what it was
but now it’s merely a blob of genderless cells,
a slow drip in an abandoned rotting shack,
a knot of unrelated images dumped
in a bag of metaphors inextricably mixed.
So take your no idea and put it in
the pockets your trousers don’t have
and pray that like a condom you didn’t know split
it doesn’t grow into something you can’t imagine.
Day 28
CONFESSION
I go into the confession booth (God knows why)
and sit down like I'm in a furniture shop
waiting for a friend who's using the loo.
The priest I cannot see, but his breath
passes through that dark holey board
like a swarm of those weird little flies.
They may be gnats, and his breath may be blessed
a little too much; I swear the whole truth
is there's so much booze on it I feel a bit sick.
"I must confess," I say in the unutmost earnest,
"that I find this utterly and completely pointless.
What of the church but a really bad joke?"
The priest is asleep, his mouth like a stigmata.
"Vampire," I hiss, and walk out onto the street
where they're playing The Matrix on a stadium-sized screen.
I turn around, go back inside and pour
a generous glass of blood red wine.
The priest is snoring. I can't tell you how cross I am.
I go into the confession booth (God knows why)
and sit down like I'm in a furniture shop
waiting for a friend who's using the loo.
The priest I cannot see, but his breath
passes through that dark holey board
like a swarm of those weird little flies.
They may be gnats, and his breath may be blessed
a little too much; I swear the whole truth
is there's so much booze on it I feel a bit sick.
"I must confess," I say in the unutmost earnest,
"that I find this utterly and completely pointless.
What of the church but a really bad joke?"
The priest is asleep, his mouth like a stigmata.
"Vampire," I hiss, and walk out onto the street
where they're playing The Matrix on a stadium-sized screen.
I turn around, go back inside and pour
a generous glass of blood red wine.
The priest is snoring. I can't tell you how cross I am.
Monday 27 April 2009
Day 27
OF IDIOTOLOGY
God and I are kicking it at the cemetery
in the long grass like the misplaced memories of the dead.
“Why did you ever let go of my tongue?” I sigh,
and he rubs my back like one who’s been there.
“I mean, I tasted all that messy unedited love
and it was good, so props to you on that one,
but after all the structures fall you need to learn again.”
He gives a sympathetic half smile
and takes a drag, careful not to blow the smoke heavenward.
“And of course, post-structure I end up with Derrida,
not so much gymming my brain as beating it with weights,
writing on people’s faces and pets and cereal
because I thought that everything must also be a pad.”
The look implies he’s about to speak, but hell,
I’ve not yet finished and who’s he to get impatient?
“Have you ever balanced Derrida’s bibliography on your back?
I tell you, it makes it damn hard to write. And even
if I could, I’d fucking deconstruct
Every Single Word
until nothing didn’t even mean nothing.”
My eyes still ache from all that reading:
two rotten apples attached to my brain.
God, who obviously knows this, simply shrugs;
I told you so, the way he’s standing says.
He flicks his cigarette and fixes his hair.
“You think you’ve got it bad?” comes the word.
“Every time I go to get changed up there,
I find that sneaky bastard Nietzsche has stuck
another sticker on my back saying:
DON’T KICK ME, I’M NOT EVEN THERE!
It’s not the fact Eve ate the apple that bothers me,
it’s the idiots who came along later and turned wood to paper.
Ever since then all I seem to hear
are people who’ve overdosed on cheap black ink
complaining about how meaningless meaning is.
Christ, I’d never have stuck you to that cross
if I’d known how poisonous teaching in general can be!”
With that he grunts and leaves me where I stand,
muttering to himself like those who pretend
to hear him in their dreams.
On his way out he passes Hardy’s grave
and –spitefully I must add – destroys it.
“I’ll give my best to Emma,” I’m sure he scowls.
God knows what I’ll do, I think, then correct myself.
I reluctantly take out my copy of Writing and Difference.
God and I are kicking it at the cemetery
in the long grass like the misplaced memories of the dead.
“Why did you ever let go of my tongue?” I sigh,
and he rubs my back like one who’s been there.
“I mean, I tasted all that messy unedited love
and it was good, so props to you on that one,
but after all the structures fall you need to learn again.”
He gives a sympathetic half smile
and takes a drag, careful not to blow the smoke heavenward.
“And of course, post-structure I end up with Derrida,
not so much gymming my brain as beating it with weights,
writing on people’s faces and pets and cereal
because I thought that everything must also be a pad.”
The look implies he’s about to speak, but hell,
I’ve not yet finished and who’s he to get impatient?
“Have you ever balanced Derrida’s bibliography on your back?
I tell you, it makes it damn hard to write. And even
if I could, I’d fucking deconstruct
Every Single Word
until nothing didn’t even mean nothing.”
My eyes still ache from all that reading:
two rotten apples attached to my brain.
God, who obviously knows this, simply shrugs;
I told you so, the way he’s standing says.
He flicks his cigarette and fixes his hair.
“You think you’ve got it bad?” comes the word.
“Every time I go to get changed up there,
I find that sneaky bastard Nietzsche has stuck
another sticker on my back saying:
DON’T KICK ME, I’M NOT EVEN THERE!
It’s not the fact Eve ate the apple that bothers me,
it’s the idiots who came along later and turned wood to paper.
Ever since then all I seem to hear
are people who’ve overdosed on cheap black ink
complaining about how meaningless meaning is.
Christ, I’d never have stuck you to that cross
if I’d known how poisonous teaching in general can be!”
With that he grunts and leaves me where I stand,
muttering to himself like those who pretend
to hear him in their dreams.
On his way out he passes Hardy’s grave
and –spitefully I must add – destroys it.
“I’ll give my best to Emma,” I’m sure he scowls.
God knows what I’ll do, I think, then correct myself.
I reluctantly take out my copy of Writing and Difference.
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