iron eye

This thing on a long iron stalk appeared from the surface of a reservoir in West Yorkshire during a recent drought. The water was around six metres lower than average, and the 'thing' is a little under a metre in diametre. I assume it's some obsolete part of the filtration system, left 'tethered' to the lake bed like a dead mine. It has since disappeared back into the black, peaty water, which no light penetrates. I like to think of it down there, preserved in a peat solution like a huge iron eye in the darkness, until the next long drought.

You can click on most of the pictures for the larger versions.

reservoir dog

This was washed up on a beach exposed by the drought. It was some matted, compacted pile of reeds and vegetation, but it had me thinking of garrotted bog men, macabre corn dollies, and some grisly pagan artefacts from Medieval Britain. I thought it looked a little like some ghastly head of a dog or a horse left on a beach as some sort of sacrifice. Perhaps a kelpie?

The light was quite unbelievable, and the whole place felt dreamlike.

sluice

outflow

WWM

(A panel saw with a wooden handle, the old type
that you might even resharpen.
A tenon saw with a brass back, a crosscut saw
and a rip saw - all years old, with the blades oiled
to stop the rust.)

WWM
punched into the handles.

And an old spirit level
made of wood and brass
with glass vessels
for the spirit
and some bubbles
of old air
unbreathed
for fifty years.
I don't know
who he was
but he liked these tools
and he oiled them
cared for them
so I'm fitting a wire head
in my drill
and grinding off
the specks of rust
that have appeared
as a result
of my neglect
then I'm oiling them
using them
grasping the sweat
the grime
the blood
the skin
absorbed
in the handle
the spirit
almost
grasping the ghost
hand of the man
himself
that liked these tools
and how they felt
the patina
that was left
by his grip
this is as close
as it gets
to shaking his hand -
using his tools,
most of all
using them,
bringing something
back to life.

goose alcohol sutra

There's a goose outside
at the edge of the field
honking, squawking
every year a goose
doing that goose thing
that sway, jerk, dance
by a big old bath
where the sheep drink.

Crying for her kind
wondering how
same as the last one
the last sad goose
in early December...

...and the moment hits
somewhere in the night
when the needle counts zero
and the wind blows in
and you fall back
into the wreckage
crash into empty cans
and bottles
and dead cigarettes
and the storm finally
blows the roof off
and the waves
crash through
your head
and you lie there
in the mess
kind of laughing
kind of not
somehow at peace
unhurt, that's the thing,
peaceful, listening
to the rain blowing in
and the stars

and the moon
is a goose
honking
all night
for her lost friends
by the big grey bath
where the sheep drink.

untitled

You have seen my secret place,
my foundation of ash where I coil.
Now there will be no silence between us
though our mouths may remain sealed.
Death will hold no fears for us
who have already died
and walked back into the light
through pine trees
engulfed by the mouth of winter
and shaking with the poems
that the Spring left here
like stars beneath the sea.

light

We found this copper funnel in a hole in the ground near the reservoir. We suspected fairies were afoot, and we played with it for a while, saturated in light. Then we hid it again. The light reminded me of something Henry Miller wrote about the Iera Ogos (the Sacred Way) in Athens. He said that beneath the veneer, just under our impressions of modern reality, as you walk the Iera Ogos through the ugly, noisy back streets of Athens, everything is still flooded with light. That's the impression I have of this moment: flooded with light, almost numinous. The pagan priest at the centre of this ritual of light is my son, who was actually looking hard for badgers.

haikewe

leaping at clouds
as though excitement
could wake skies

one dead by morning
a confused mother
crying over wet fields

dawn vignette

The shoulder of Boulsworth Hill
thrust against the cloud
like a half awake lover,
and the dawn's sweep
down to wet Wycoller
where the bridges crash into the beck,
and ghosts crowd the ruins
in the night's flood.

History is close here:
the Iron Age, the Saxons
with their wykes,
vaccary walls
still stark on the brows
like tombstones in the mist
down the hillsides
to where the alders shuffle
about the beck,
waiting for dawn
to drive back the ghosts.

The message

The message
is paraffin
and ash,
iron filings
and spent oil.
The message
is a room
in the afternoon
with no light
with the curtains
half-drawn
and grey rain
on the panes.

The message
is the shapes
beneath the skin
moving,
looking out,
looming
blue-black
behind the face
that demands
you attend
to the words
the absence of light
the anger
the alchemy
the message
until it becomes
no longer
the message
from the father
to the son
but the long
message
from the son
to his own
worthless soul.

The workaday psychology of shamans

This is dark crimson
dyed with berries
and the blood of stags
filthy with age
and stinking of Christmas
drumming red spirals
across the snow
spindrift dancing
in the air like stars
I pull up in my sleigh
and tell the reindeer to wait
Yeah, I'll pay, I tell them,
I'll pay in kicks and Fly Agaric
and cold urine.
And I drop the package
into the chimney hole
of the yurt
hearing the babble
as the inhabitants
scramble
to grab it from the fire
hoping for money
and finding a salmon
a piece of antler carved like a face
some cured venison.
That makes me laugh.

I kick the reindeer into life,
and we are gone
streaming
like blood in snow:
singing to staunch
our winter wounds.
like blood streaming in the snow.

animal on the roof

the night outside
battering at the roof
I picture it as a thing
with a mouth
thrashing
an angry animal
licking at the tiles
I see it with intent
though it can't have intent
surely it's just the night
and the wind
and the dark
that surrounds me
that fills my head
with those thoughts
as though some giant
had walked across the sky
open-mouthed
to tear off my roof
and roar in my ear.

5 poems

1. wall-eyed philosophe seeks love
   

.
(she laughs at both
...........................their stories
comes in time to feel
................dissatisfied with
.........................................*both*)

it is I who desire it

she whirls before them, rumishhhwirrls
(no one can condemn
...............................or absolve her)
—it is not precisely the eyes
..........—its imprecisly th eys—
(see at least this: ashamed
I appear to other )
................................nor is this all.

......................she is not in the café
.............in café are all fractures
attenuated in her shape
............................(she gulfs elsewhere)
she inhabits not at now.
..................nor she here.
................................nor this all.

...............................he know it
................in his askance when he comes
................to look ..with ..a/a...bifurcated .........(glass)
................instrument .he/he .calls...head

[in this moment we're hearing dreary he is here looking merely for dear love]

..............................nor is this all
......................of which she gulfs
this imprecision and

........several of these are put in the mouth
........(several of these are put in the mouth)

this imprecision is precisely
the gulfing she elsewhere
.
.
.
^{(This is a transtextual poem using rearranged text fragments by Jean Paul Sartre and Maurice Cranston, interspersed with original material.)}

2. eyeless in

Пусть он вспомнит девушку простую,
Пусть услышит, как она поёт,
Пусть он землю бережёт родную,
А любовь Катюша сбережёт - Mikhail Isakovsky

I see nobody—the Stalin Organs
shrill at night—on the road
—they fill the players
—said [.....]—with delight
—to be able to see nobody
(the river bank steep in the mist)
—clear black sky eyeless from al-Attara
to the Ashkelon dream-Kessel....Shhhh
............................=====>>>>...O

O—the road at night—I wish I
had such eyes— let him hear
Katyusha’s clear song—they fill
the players—to see nobody
^{(Russian manufacture 122mm BM-21 GRAD)}
—and at that (hush now)
distance—to see nobody
said the [.......]

("We will continue
to respond, to initiate and to harm...")
—the one whose letters
she has kept ............(Stalin Organs..................shrill

..............................................[of rivers]
..............................................................................at night

....................................................to fill .........[like a bird]

........................................................................we players
...........[homeland and their love]

.......................................................with ........................delight)

........................such eyes

^{(This is a transtextual poem composed of reordered text fragments by Lewis Carroll, Mikhail Isakovsky, and Ehud Olmert, interspersed with original material.)}

3. Epitaxy

"All of you know nothing; I alone know something" - Wilhelm II


let this be an end to it

flowers unarrayed funerary sprays of moment
..........................(whiter than Gogs) from the Northwith
..............a surrounded look (just don't, don't)
...........................or looks ..............on which
..................they take wing
..........at each other his face

shines flicker with digital craquelure

"all this is drift only of interest
to the novelty hunters it obscures

the true processes beneath"

once in Macau in Spring
a man sat in an alley with shears and
live tortoises

"zunguzung .......................the archbishop warns
ungu..................................that Sharia law is soon
zunguzeng". ......................to be implemented wholesale
- Yellowman.......................across Europe

they have lock-ins nightly till two
it is here that the real business
of the speed-dating enters its
tertiary phase

........................................[behind shutters outside
........................................policemen with moustaches truncheons
........................................lanterns whistles smell trouble
........................................up iron drainpipes of the now true process]

you'll have to stop all this masturbating he said why doctor will it
make me go blind no it's upsetting the people in the waiting room
- B. Manning

where flyspray flowers shook safe as houses
at the passage of steamtrains—there there

..........................There

is this drift into breakout.there.uncertain (even
as) informations have not come to.our inattention.
leave quietly
............................by the back door.there.

they have till two by the back door uncertain .........he beat
...........................in Old Ama Kow
..................................................at the first with a hammer fracturing
...........................the rim of its shell began to open it
with the shears its head concealed alive
...............................(((legs moving in clear distress there there)
as he cut in was impossible (not to look) in Old Rainwater-Macau they sang
O lost songs of turtle goddess love not to watch
.............................down running culverts
..........................................
............................................On

to the harbour dreams (now virtually
certain) quietly by the back door

the busy temple terrapins in plastic bowls
of banknotes assure the safety of seafarers

..........................(that Stonings 'n' Beheadings
..........................of adulterers and homosexuals
..........................routine in London by 2010 a arcbishop infronted
..........................by accusatives of High Trees and Heresay
..........................qualify earlier abatements
..........................—I didn't mean it as it sounded and

............................no one would really call the Queen a MILF
......................................he says as though aloud)

new terrible vernaculars array themselves
....................................on all sides on the beaches

(want to die peacefully quiet in my sleep
like my father not terrified screaming
like his passengers - B. Monkhouse)

.......................and landing grounds
bedecked in bright bunting

there's just no arguing with you now, is there

let that
be an end
to it

4. slick of black flags

evidently supertuesday and not one solid pancake
to enliven a notification of aquifers in

the corner a capsized toilet brush holder leaks
faecal toxins bespeaking slovenliness and weak
ness of domestic intention week in week out so

to applaud failure O why such
that we have ever and roused suddenly
by fluttering no it won't dare say that

over the many dark islands the flags like lizards
ragged tissue of two hundred year old tortoises
but why not
we gather here hot hopping hipping hoo hoo at margins jump idiotic
crazed yes but not
foolish only seeking cooling

together under we throng submerged as sea-rats
rubbing up wrong ways
of current

(Darwin knows of…)

finched alive in fire and squeak

5. plighted the fieldmask encrypt

they came on in the same old way
and we stopped them in the same old way - Arthur Wellesley

on in the same old way we stopped this fall
of them and through the hearing [heart] wrink
of it now folded with very fear doesn't above all

shrink unto ever the wastes that so sing
ringèd brinks at the short slight doorways of frost—O
we confess shy of masonry shaven to shortcoming

of seasons of lack and ill-lustre how, ink, eek
we have state in the blank seas' moods where
time and tide shear upon our every waking sheek

will shove like all animals a heart yet all it
vergeth all confunded all in late grass love of
beneath all thinks where all lies stopt sunlit

moorland beach

Love

It wasn't love
it was cocaine metabolised out of my skin
that made animals dance outside the car
as we drove through the night
I don't remember where we were going
or if we we got there
I was wired up to the battery
and my teeth were chattering
like I was imbibing electrolytic speed
from the battery cells and the road ahead
with words falling from me like electric confetti
not even looking at you
not even certain that you were there
just that something other than myself
drove between lines and lights
almost forever, it seemed,
like it could never stop.

It wasn't love
because in dawn's grey light
I sat on the beach
with iron filings and ash
where loss should have been.

autoflarf collaborations with PJO

.
1. oh imagine that unmoved she stood before
.
oh imagine that unmoved she stood before
Montenegro, Hotel Berane
engaged for a year but the cold
(each other in German, imagine

even he startled)
oh beautiful! beautiful! she cried as he standing behind her

his height, that hotspot in the middle
only one room heated

I do cuddle on the balcony
might even happen yet
woods pressing all around water I hate

(She stays out later and later every night
with her hand shading
her neat blue-and-white stripes she wears now
bent back before him
outcast of islands)

this country now everyone's too short
(imagine dispersing

oh imagine that unmoved she stood before)
.
.
.
.
....................................................................

2. ALL U KNOW ABSOLUTLeY FUCK

WHY i HATE FUCKS:

Ok see ya hi boy
I sure love when you ignorant bastards
come through my line
acting like you know everything

why i hate ignoramus freaks:

u know absolutley fuck all
i dont know how old u r (but i do)
and you know grow up, wake up,
and quit fucking whining to me you ignorant

I NOMINATE DAVE SMITH
AS THE IGNORANT BASTARD OF THIS PAGE
(FUCK ALL OF YOU) HOW CAN YOU IGNORANT BASTARDS SAY?

why I hate houses of freakin apollo:

fucking ignorant bastards hit me
with something I haven’t seen before
fuck all these conservative boneheads
if you're sick of stereotypes by all

why I hate blacks:

fuck all the surs the norts the cripps and bloods,
matter of fact fuck all
when are this ignorant bastards going?

why i hate Bush in Brasil go home nazi bastard:

aren't you paying attention you ignorant bastard?
there's three days on the Senate floor
and I can't fuck all them old men fast enough

why epileptics I hate:

fuck all of you who hate something
and fuck sum1 in your family had epilepsy
would you want them ignorant bastards?

Nigeria’s Next Top Model:

fuck nigeria fuck africa and fuck all
the blacks that continue to blame the world
haw u fink africa is fulll of low lives..
ure jus an ignorant bastard

why I hate you fucking Yankee bastards:

why I hate preaching:

all you fucking aetheist God hating
motherfuckers need to suck
GO THE FUCK BACK where you came from
ignorant bastard scum
.
.
.
.
...................................................................

3. a letter to the King of Brazil

Because I hate
ignorant
I am sorry on all this
(approval V that certain love of boy)
when them ignorant come through my line

that act (as you knows): everything
(because I hate freaks of ignoramus)
and you know you grow above,
I wake
up above
if to lament you

(because I hate houses of freakin Apollo)
for everything because I hate black (color)
substance to me of the fuck-all-of-the-fact

we go to the same place of caralho
(because I hate Bush in Brazil)
(I go the Nazi bastard home)
I am you who paid the attention

(three days in the wooden floor of senate there)

epileptics me hates (I hate it bastard fodendo of Yankee)
the speech of preaching (all god of atheist) that she hates

YOU STOP BACKWARDS
.
.
.
.
....................................................................

4. a certain love of boy
.
Because I hate
(I am sorry on all this)
that certain love of boy
when them ignorant come through my line

that act (foder as you knows) everything
because I hate freaks of ignoramus)
and you know you grow
I wake up above if to lament you

because I hate houses of Apollo
for everything I hate
substance to me
of the fuck-all-of-the-fact

we go to the same place of caralho
(I go the Nazi bastard home)
I am you who paid the attention
(three days in the wooden floor
I hate it bastard fodendo of Yankee)

STOP this BACKWARDS