hysteria

those faltering halting little steps
now barely from the lean to the totter
from smile to smile if all those days again
if all not another life one liveth in the mind
but the same done different so small is all
so small, so missed

.

Cardamona

some pretty pretty poetess
sat there upon her round
upon a milk-red carpet
admirers all around
for in such opportunity
buffoons will oft abound.  

I love thee all, she cried in glee
though coyness were her crime
upon a milk-black carpet
which served her for a rhyme
if I'd stop gazing in my glass 
I might wake from this mime .

.

not yet wet

the wind has changed tonight and all the washing left out left wide open to the rain like windows flapping like intruders against themselves in all of this shut out shut out open shut in flap like an insect trying to get out or in to that light of the moon outside inside by which to navigate without the rain there could be no wet not yet .

line-breaks wah

I have no intention of writing prose poetry. Blogger has stopped allowing me to use line-breaks. I sort of like the randomness of this form of divination, but really I'd rather it wasn't happening. Could someone call them for me and tell them this experiment was fun but now needs to end? Thanks, kind stranger.

coits after cigarettes

the holidays are over
the holidays are over
oh ho oh ho oh woe so
known about so known about oh so
exposed so thrown about and thrown
without so disapproved so frozed. the holidays
are over, over I suppose, who knows? the holidays
are over the clover is all over. in Dover it was over: when
the ferry hit the shore I knew we'd be no more for the holiday
was over the holiday was over oh no oh ho oh woe. there's only
now the last kiss and better make it fast, miss. goodbye before the bus.
was nice while it lingered, but really what's the fuss? for the holidays are over
and it's back to Jan and Rus. for that's what's left of us. the holidays are over, over
(fade to echo) .

.

is or is not the drumming

wall hanging mandolin selected poems of Lorca brown carpet brown why brown carpet Delta Fit multigym the fab cab dented heater TVTVTVTVTV Vanity Fair swell slough somehow curtains cameras (many, archaics) swell of form under banjo brass backless chair backless dress spineless undress ballistic soap coning a spurt or two the red scatter a stench of barium, lead, antimony, domesticity cooking a marinated corpse at the railway an iron corpse visibility fair vanity ten to sixteen offing veering later just gone five miles north utsire moderate shannon a washed- up corpse in a copse tonight of all nights the harvest moon-faced swollen gibbing slid from her/his hand in hers the metal the amplified metal face up to it no more than a bedstead clutched a thousand times over the years by both parties partied out partied out out out .

all so furred the engines now

a furred thing half and half of what came next to the wall by the stair well with the grandfather clock this in the ancient carpark a man breast that was reviled but think tank think outside the boxing day or night this comes with caveats and conditions are so bad in the besieged city states before the Bronze Age collapse like a wounded bull shit we had nothing back then even it up hand half of this over and above our last it was nothing .

big-eyed alien

sometimes you can fall in love with some of what someone is ick uck wah they say in their place after some time you recognise the phonemes as disasters issued across a table ick uck wah you have issued back I love you it means in this language from afar I hate you it means in this other I nothing it means I you end it all with schwa the most meaningless the uh or ugh the unpronounced the unborn limp dick-waving throat-wrap the final uh .

red threads of the animal soul

had a dog once that collected stamps he had a network of pals all over sent him Magyar Postars and Third Reich rarities used to sit looking at them over breakfast never seemed that happy or enthused just did it like a routine historic ones he liked the best would lick the backs to see what the past tasted like getting in that vestigial DNA from the last lickers from Germany Romania Czechoslovakia the Soviets saliva fossils full of dead crystal messages one day he starts writing hundreds of letters envelopes them all up applies the stamps when I ask I am waiting he says to speak with the dead people from afar who I have tasted it won't be long now they will come I think this is foolish I say so and we argue over breakfast he looks at me angrily but one day we hear the marching of many boots, the singing of wild songs outside then a stop then the door bangs hard no I say no, don't answer he is marching halfway to the door when I shoot him down like a dog with the old shotgun we used on the rats he barely whimpered just soaked in you know how they do there was no more stamping anywhere after he marched away that last time last thing I heard was the letterbox slam and a curious eldritch sound of licking from the outer green yard I slept like a log .

a stamp collecting animal

this Chinese belief that children at birth emanate tiny red threads that go in search of the soulmate of that child.that and this.sometimes the threads do not survive the turbulence of parenting they are broken and lost.the child will not find its mate, having no threads to guide it, or will but will not know.these two souls destined for all time to be together will look upon each other and not recognise now that their filaments are severed.under the spreading chestnut tree.one hears trains steaming at night and must hasten away.something deep deep.the naked one wakes from a dream of knocking, runs to answer the door, but nothing is there, but surely something brushed past something that could never, could never .