by
Chris_Andrew
@ 08.10.2006 - 22:19:16
TELLING THE TIME BY WOMEN
I met Belladonna in the morning
And Francois Donnietta at night
I went giddy-up with gladys
All afternoon - and you ask
Me what's the bloody time!
THE COLONY
I am here and wonder
Which category am I;
Idiot, imbecile or feeble minded
I suffer from a failure
Of imagination -
At Meanwood Park colony
A perfect walled circuit
Penned in 'defective genes'
A holiday camp
With no holiday
Numbered perfection
Beauty
Everything noted
Everything watched,
The detailed logs of the
Bowel
Menstruation
Bathing books
Kept like marble tablets
Water measured out
On a steel chain.
---
Here we believed
In the bronze, silver, gold
Of failure
Then years later
The symmetry was broken
Piece by piece
A colony of ants
Confused and scattered
A community
Of East Berliners
Awed by the Sun
That rode over the wall...
Some had waited half
Their lives or more to be
Normal...
To
Boil a kettle
Play with a cat
Soak in a bath
Pin their clothes
On their own line.
TRICKLE DOWN
Steep gradients
Critical approaches
To the young and the fit
The starving fields,
Swarms -
All dots in your island.
General statistics.
Join up the rich
And the poor
There is a moon setting
In the cog of the yard
Stars are spears
Components weeping
Into an empty bucket
Your eye.
Damn the poor
They hurt us with
Their life and opportunity
Like steel halos they hook
Into our love.
COORDINATES
Half past three (Earth time)
The space between us
Intensely shimmers;
Your lovely heart revolves
As we stand by the hatch
Of traffic cones, giggling.
Your hourglass suit blossoms
In our eighth month -
A bubble of hope reflecting
As a continent, mountain and a canal
Float by; I know love connects
As we jointly witness the world
Its craters gullies and satellite heart
...But though blessed with static
And oxygen, everything here
Is sterile and stillborn
This is Mars (not Venus)
LOVELY DAY
Its illusory
The waves so peaceful
On the sea
I listen
For the gravel chiming
On the beach
My life
Is washing away
From me
A duck flies West
A lovely day….
Sinks
CHOIR PRACTICE AT WELLS
The brethren chant
Their broken hymns
Amid the stamens and
Stems of fleur-de-lyse
‘Hosanna Hosanna’
The choir climb
Under a master’s
Watchful eye
Grasping each rung
Of the ladder, they
Reach above gargoyles
To the dark rafters
Awakening dead angels
Who lift the tense notes
Beyond a seamless
Acappella, into the space
Of the hereafter.
TRAPPINGS
Sky naked stone -
The great cathedral of
Wells has no colour
Or glitz on gaudy bones
Proud women
Go walking by
In Armani and Prada
Some showing thigh
A cliff of prayer with
Taut scoured faces,
No colour in cheeks
But this institution
Loves the credit card
Holders who see
The glory of God
Looking down.
KEG
I love the Keg Wood.
The trees are rooted
A mile deep, under industrial
Slag, left over waste
Of a Rivet and Screw Age, melded
Onto this cheap oil painting.
I suck on a sweet, relax
Watching the heartbeat and
Surrender of a latched fern
Stone steps dissolve
Under eyes. I lose my edge
Looking into the dark heart
Displayed in these species.
A woodpecker
Magician knocks inside me.
I tidy up a lad's imagination
As night falls
As a barrel of tar slips down.
The hillside barely supports trees.
Underskirts of wood become
Dirty - I end up with my back
To this dancing display.
***
I walk on
A leafy sky interrogates
While a child releases
A ton balloon. The lake I love
Is a mirror glowing white.
The ground is contaminated
Ladling up its syrup-sludge of
Organics and after-birth weeds;
It will deliver perfect daffodils
To the hybrid Spring
And mosquito clouds of course
And rain in sieves -
Its hard walking on the coal
Of paths slipping down
To a wet dot by a railing.
Fractious teeth fall over the edge.
***
By the lake I reflect
On a moment of pain from last year.
Logs are marked
In red with a highlighter
The swans dive down -
I watch this peaceful
Warped mirror face.
In hell channels rot,
Wild rain and garlic -
Forget-me-knots. Waterproof
Zombies roam the lakeside paths,
While a fiesty wren picks at me
From the blue-bells.
The wind picks up
I catch my coat -
Watch your bespoke shadow grow
From your shoulders, from the bench -
Turn to see you, looking straight at me,
The carnage apparent in your eyes;
***
Returning the popular way
Random samples of generations
Trickle through the gaps
Grannies from the great smoke
Admire the lake's baconfoil -
The monochrome islands
Float by a framed golden hill,
The sun a soft skinned doily
I watch the lubricated tree-roots
Nuzzle the banks, slip
Hands into mud -
A fox is alien here
A wrapper for sweets.
As the winds strafe the shore
A heron buttoned up, silent
Prays beyond The George.
TO A BLOG GIRL (v.2)
Your simple photo
Posted to the world ignites
Feelings I used to hold
So hard to look on -
Your eyes downturned
Like an old master;
Your Da Vinci smile
Whispers.
To others its
A carefully demure pose -
But I see a real shyness
Avoiding the lens
On reflection
I suppose it depends
On how you look at it
PIECES OF LOVE
Our love part of a jigsaw -
The box number secret in my heart.
I jiggled, then distributed
Thousands of badly fitting pieces
In a sky flecked with moon and stars.
Everyone I met contributed -
Sometimes whole sections,
Or a corner that made sense of the
Whole thing, like a woman's smile.
But your eyes are gone
Can’t be contained today.
I don’t think you belong here at all
Are you part of some larger jigsaw?
VENUS AND MARS
If you polish the mirror
Of your heart too hard,
Your mission will be
Hostile like Venus or Mars.
Some people are expressive
Reflective as gold.
Others (like lead or titanium)
Seem distant and cold
I need someone close to me
I read my self-help book;-
“when you love someone
It means that
He or she
Is putting you in touch
With a part of you
That you love
In yourself”
...I look at my thrush
Intently listening on the lawn
PAST AND PRESENT
We all love
And leaves turn to gold
We all loved
And leaves turn old
O.A.P
They lift me in to bed
In a stringy blue vest then
Lift me out again to clean me -
Night begins
When the fuckers turn up for work
There are leg ulcers on me. Its
Almost two days before my birthday.
I try not to second guess, but
I guess this is how it will end.
...I need a long rest
On a caribbean island
Or Blackpool
Instead they give me porridge,
Occassional bacon and eggs.
I can't keep this up
I don't have my identity card
My DVD's or CD's are scratched to bits
Im shuffling in pissy clothes
Down corridors lined with carpets
Originally I was looking for love
MAXIM
A poem without kindness
Is like a seed that
Is dry inside
SLEEPING NAUTILLUS
I spiral into my life
One step back, two forward
Down into the central chamber
Where my love lies
Wake up!
Wake up! Ignore the teeth
That swim in the sea….
Leave your perfect geometry
Go naked, unprotected
Into the spiral of another life
THE FRIDGE
I have a semi-organised fridge
But I have a problem.
I never look at the back
Just below the light
I have discovered
Tomatoes change shape after
A month, but eggs
hmmm
Lets not go there
EASTER BREAK
This day started with rain
Little jewels shook out
From clouds ; birds scuttling
In rhodedendroms. A blackbird song.
Then I wrote a poem, washed the pots
Got the house real neat,
Took out the giant bin,
Relaxed at my Dell PC.
Tomorrow, laborious
Work will again claim my mind;
Right now I enjoy the rain,
As I calculate the minutes
It takes for a cloud to dry.
BURSTING
Holy black night
Drop your stars
Let ancient fire
Infect my eyes
I will sleep
Like death -
Dark is a friend
But these eight hours
My thoughts
Are swept along
Head hits the dead spots
On jagged rocks -
Roar roar
It never stops
roar roar
It can never stop.
BESIDE MYSELF
As a child I was a pool,
As a man a running river,
As a teenager a garrulous
Talker, as an elder a
Weak dried giver
But at times
I reverse roles,
Live again as a child,
Link sky with the roots
Of Cathedrals, towns and
Secret places underground
SMOKING IS BAD FOR YOUR GRACE
I tell you child, smoking
Is bad for your Grace,
You will slip down to hell
Fire licking your face.
If your Father could
See you...such a disgrace!
Don't you Realise smoking
Is bad for your Grace?
POP ART!
Im just a solitary walker
Havn’t got 60,000
Components around me.
Im in a country lane:
I hit my stride
Under leaves bright as light bulbs
Everything glides here
Like on metal rails.
Ive been here once before
In shadows
With no direction - smooth metal
Maps, the 9-5 frayed zones.
Now I fill
My time
With balloons
Floating
To the grave;
I think ridiculous thoughts
Laugh when they explode
Soak me - big joke on me.
Pop! Pop Pop pop pop -
Not got long before I pop
DO YOU REALISE IM
(DODGING THE BULLET OF LOVE)
Do u realise I love you
Not in a cloying way
But as the clouds that are grey
Hide a majestic sun
Do u realise that
After thirty-eight years
My sentiments are a dart
That races from my heart
To yours
We can‘t be all we are
Unless we surrender.
We can't be all we are
Unless we find love outside
The dark comfort zone
Of living alone
CRYING
Watching Schindler's list
On a borrowed black and white
...got all cut up inside.
Couldn't take it -
I flattened as he
Faltered, dropping the ring
Of bloody fillings.
I cried like a baby
Just bawled
Later that night, I cried too
For every Jew and German
On or off screen,
For every fighter
For every Arab -
For me and you.
WITHOUT YOU
Without you
Everything is right,
....So wrong
At two 'o' clock
Horses unshod
Without an owner
Win their first race -
They trot to the medals
And always get shot
Without you
Everything makes sense
And nothing does. Without you
The Last
Judgement is incomplete -
I remember
Reclining ontop of beachy head
Look up at the clouds
Rolling with thunder
I opened my brolly for a
Second. What a way to go
Silly this place -
Hell is....deeply black
And yet
Without you, I notice the
Tides turning from green to black,
Jet coloured
For all eternity,
Are glimmering with
Secret heartbreaking rainbows.
THE BEAUTIFUL GAME
Rainbows and tickertape tinfoil...
We come from an indescribable place
The humble govenor (someone like
Mr Bobbie Moore - talented person)
Has placed me in a great match
This extraordinary game -
Left me deep in a dark place
Of desire, with inclinations in my heart
To create loud fires of hate or
Stand closer on the terraces
With bobble-hatted mates
I know
He gave us pure light, ready
Sympathy, human bliss
I also believe he knows
We were destined to create Satanic mills,
Abattoirs, fast food joints
Which we must eventually resist...
HOT AIR
Trees whither in
Isolation, so do we
Our lungs are little
Branches, a copse
That breathes in either
Pollution or H2O
We reach out
Breathless and full
Of ardour, to grab a part
Of the sky - we turn
Our words into steam
We have
No reason to say anything....
We are not moderate citizens
But occassionally
In drab cities,
Our branches
Flower into
Beautiful words.
SNAILS
Kiss ooh
As long as it takes
Fumble in
The dank cloakroom
Worship with the tongue
No place to hide
As two lose the shell
Of adolescence;
I watch the trails of silver
And other substances
To the empty dancehall
That shows how two
Obsessives
First crossed paths
RAIN
They gave me
The precise time
For dawn and dusk
The sun popping
Up from a toaster
And the bus
Crawling around
The scalped hill
But the rain
On my
Prescription face
Leaves streaks
Of happiness
Sometimes I forget the bill.
ASLEEP
Her head an egg-timer
Lap, a dance of colours
Lashes extend out
Like Blackpool pier
Catch goodies
In a steel claw -
You're a unique body, a
Baby Iris, a fortress of stars
And I dream of your house
The castle of a Welsh legend
Especially that concentric dot
Where the Lady
Of the Lake sleeps
With my next door neighbour
Stan Ogridge (undertaker)
Till' six o clock
SECURITY IS OFF THE MENU
The honeymoon has soured
The paperclips plastic not steel
Business lunches reveal live sharks
In the tank. Sincerity is off and
Because I use a keyboard
As if its an instrument
Akin to a glider or pen or a girder
(Or maybe a joist or a tie-pin).
Your dignified face has
Crumpled up like a possum.
BONEMAN
Its hard to make my
Lovely bones walk spiritually
My thighs so long so pure
Walk on their own
I rub my wrist and wishbone -
See life through a
Romantic skull - ecstatic
Tongues leach into soil
The belly was a paper bag.
All the sweets I enjoyed
Have gone forever
Wasted;
Unless the juice got in the bones.
DOCUMENTING TEARS
Water of grace
For the human race -
Precious cleansing pools
Rub into my dark scratch -
The eye can’t close
On its hopes and fears.
I fill up - so many
Days and years to
Document,
As a teardrop
Breaks on golden
Skin - since the day they
Cut the God-man down -
Wrapped him in a shroud.
A drop will melt a man
Until he is bare
(Indeed
A woman’s tear can point
In like a spear)
THE MERRY MONTH OF MAE
With the immortal words
Of Mae West
I have been blessed -
The erotic two-tongued
Fornication of snaky
Syllables slinking from their bed
SACRAMENT
The lord is my shepherd
I shall not want while
I clutch credit cards and
Count old till receipts.
Late at night
I enjoy the sacrament of kisses
From the images of trees
The sacrament of playstation
The sacrament of widescreen
The great symbols
Lost in this dust, a digital
Lindisfarne landscape
And I want to write better
I want to reach out to you
But I get so twitchy
I get so distracted
MORNING HAS BROKEN
Hardboiled cop
Doesn't see kindness
In his neighbourhood;
Unofficially his law is gun
There is brief sanctuary
And fraternity
In the station in the morning
By the coffee machine
The light streams in
Away from the charts
And pictures of suspects
His shirt is polished like a funeral
SHIP WRECK AT XMAS
1.
Sun kissed cargo
Skuffed knees
Tangerine crop
Riding a sea breeze
Chapped cheeks
Of a weary crew
Seagulls trail behind.
The rimed optic of
A lighthouse sees
Far into the dark swell -
Men wince, a rock slides
And tears into the side
The hole is a wound
Into which water gushes quick
So that in fifteen minutes
A captain an engineer
And bosun are drowned
2.
Several
Miles from land
The xmas trees glow -
Merry Xmas!
And the tangerines were found -
And happy children
Combing the bay took them home.
THE JOGGER
I ate a bagle this morning yum
I absorb the glow of its halo
The benediction of hot flour
Yes I’ve got a pregnant belly
Im the symbol of prehistoric man
The 'main man'
Once a month I go to work - when
I arrive, I want to bounce off walls
But my secret is Macdonalds.
At night I pound
My fifteen poised kilos
Into a country lane - bliss
Redistribute over cobbles -
Sights and sounds assail.
Car horns, radio, a riff
Of Heavy metal
And yes I’m so tired of it all
The neat rotting branches -
The Sony beat box in the hedge
the hard wink of next doors
House alarm which is wired up
Like a Cheshire cat.
WORSE
There are slugs on the door
And worse in the hall
Theres one dull
Window in here -
I shut it like a dead man's
Silvery eye
LOOK
A Kestrel in the sky
An eye in the sky
A knife dangled from string
It picks its point
Carefully between roads
Whoosh it
Skydives, drops between
Weather fronts, a fist falls
In a confusion of rain
To pin its jewelled eyes.
So natural
It hardly tries
So natural
A killer it casually
Opens bodies
To consume its wildlife
HARD
Woodlouse armoured
Woodlouse hard?
Im afraid for you -
My slippered foot
Feels heavy as lard
DO AS I SAY
Make sunshine while
Theres hay, oh boy
What a command
I have no field
and i have no sickle
No breast
On which to suckle.
Sometimes i think
the Lord is fickle...
And yet
I forget
Im sure he made me
A whinging get
CRACKING UP
There’s a crack in my windscreen
I look through it
Look through it
At
The trees bent with their long lives
With the graceful willow
Sweeping the floor
My house is
Beautiful and long
My house is like me - closed
There’s a crack in my windscreen
I look through it
HOLIDAY CHALET
Remember the splinter -
Something worth saying
Is not easy to say.
The uneasy melody
Of a lift's musak
Going up in the Black Forest
To a terrible chalet of peace
LISTEN TO…
Last night I listened
To the components
Of my garden -
Free at last
From the cloying
Messages on TV;
And I heard
Most beautiful
Of all (Im rather
Embarrassed here)
A daffodil growing
In its bulging bulb
Roots
Radiating like
The flares of the sun
Sucking - alien -
One day it will emerge
Triumphant, shout out to you
In a big loud voice
Amplified
By its golden halo
"Hello"
FOUR ELEMENTS
I bathe your
Image in tears
My heart on fire
Tormented at night
I can’t my bury thoughts
I need to put
The breath back
Into my
Still lungs
STATUES AND JELLYFISH
This moment is
Perfect as a statue is
Chipped...
The love of a woman
The warmth of a woman
Her shivering heart
I know love
Is a great big tent...
And it can sing...
BEHAVE IT - YOUR DEAD
Drive me to the end of time
To the end of the Onedin line
Shake your head
Adjust your lips
And whoosh Im
In a classic car
Tell Johnnie
To stop
We should get off now
From Lands End to John 'O' Goats
A Norton polished motorbike
Is a beautiful emotion
Someone follows
A window comes down
A wheel bursts
The moment of death
No going back for us
Sucking on my toe
The fuel dripping
By The Little Chef
Will ignite soon
Looking at the crossroads
Charon the pimp in
Black Armani suit
Drives a stretch-limo.
THE STATISTICIAN
He counted
The number of times
They kissed
The rounded numbers
Of their arms
Interlocking;
The angular numbers
Of their teeth
The long division
Of their sighs
And the stars
Were paper puzzles
He put away in a box
POLITICS
Form an orderly cue
Behind his glorious arse
He talks, He looks good on TV!
Lick lick lick lick lick
Slick slick slick slick
Oh no - collatoral damage
Play the National Anthem
(Dead
Quick)
POEM FOR MARY MAGDELINE
Brown hair
Black hair
African hair
True Aryan hair
Run your fingers through,
Wash that history clean
Porno hair
Witches hair
Adulterer's hair
Cut it for your
Shrine's locket
All of it kissed
By you, passing through
Your passionate lips
SMALL IMPROVEMENTS
You may be pleased to know
I am continuing to make
Small improvements
I dot my t's
And cross my i's
Do not feed cake
To the penguins
And most importantly
Of all shout
Basking Shark! Basking shark!
If I see one
OLD MAN WILLOW
Old man Willow,
Why do you lean
And why also cry?
Why do you split
Your sides
And crack?
Oh man-boy
I weep
For the dead
Men of the river;
The drowned who
Couldn't straighten
Their backs
WAR SONG
Pack up your laptop
In your old kit bag
And smile smile smile
Though disillusioned
With this life, try
Again in a little while
No use in private poetry
It never was worthwhile
So pack up your laptop
In your duffle-bag
And smile smile smile
BETTER THAN ROAD DRILLING?
Believe in magic
With all your heart...
For me it starts with the eyes
Travels down to the chest
Across the muscles
Than up to the zip
A-b-r-a-c-a-d-a-b-r-a
What do you think -
Is magic better?
...Is Love better than this?
BODIES
We'd all like to be perfect
To stay at our Adonis peak
Avoid becoming museum freaks
Fading in the magazines
Some packages make us giggle,
Others conform more to ideas;
Blessed studs, catalogue sirens
Apple pie kids
Then there are other
More hidden limbs -
Distorted, 'crippled',
Not very well endowed -
Not enough smoothness
Heads ruined, legs fused
Face a mess, no symmetry.
But if we learned
To remove our fears
If I smiled and reached out
My body would take me
From me to you.
THEN
Then Angels wings will be more subdued
Not so masterful as of old -
They will become butterflies
Who earn their wings - who
Pupate sexually in the
Silken breast
Then will be our one moment
We'll tune out, flap for ecstasy
Wrap the sun
In a beach towel
And lay it on the ground
With the molten chest
Of a new heaven
CO-ORDINATES (for Philip K. Dick)
Half Past Three
The Space intensely
Shimmers between us
Yours is a sweet halo
I quietly watch a woman
In her capsule float by
Bobbing in traffic, in technology
By this mercury-filled hatch
Time freezes my introspection as
An hourglass suit blossoms
I reflect aluminium hosts
Stardust, the unknown, click
On computer logic
Our job is done
Mars is a mist
I let go, spin in the dark
Dewey-eyed - my Leica registers
A Continent, mountain a
Fjord while
A finger of Amazon is a soft light
Love expands and contracts
I look at your belly
And think of our project -
Hoping we'll be finished by Xmas
And hang our lights.
