ForkWord
ten [?reasonably good] poems
Below are ten poems, that I think work in some way or other, and that I have collected together from around this site which started in 2005. Apparently some people don't have hours and hours to read poems anymore, I don't know why.
Braided Ham
Shooting off into the dark art chart part
with a lanky lumberjack vagabond nose
in a blue jinxed disaster car dashless on
great unfortunate wheels one flawless fall
that put a cigarette hole in my India blanket.
Wanderlust took it and us into a vacuole of
blue sky peppered with squirrel trees for a
weekend alone, we two, alone by an ill sea
whose guts had been brought up on the sand
by a storm, lying thick like braided ham.
The stink permeated everything.
We lit a fire, got drunk, and writhed with
frustrated dreams. Later I walked alone
along the perimeter of the ocean
a cue ball of desire bulging in my pocket,
to find rocks to smash my egg on, hard by a dead
sting-ray lying upturned, mucousy; a lump of tripe.
I filmed you clambering up a promontory
in black and white, by soundless surf;
scarfed explorers clutching vials of wine
we had stayed out past closing time
and i think we were senseless to the stenches
of my hopes dying, while yours grew
but these are the things that the ocean will do to you
2007
A Speckled Stone
a speckled stone
round as the moon
is balanced
on the temple gate
under that tree
lies the man who placed it there
centuries ago
silently he awaits its fall -
his final act upon the earth
2008
Turiya
let the eye close without and open within
knowing nothing
I visit sleep and become happy
gunned down by day
my idleness stands watching
as I slip into the perfume of a rose -
therein lies my perfection
for what perfection is
not in Turiya?
mind unfoils
in torpor of abyssal seas -
a wreck that is come down to Thee
meets slow transfiguration
those people of the world
with outstretched arms
I ask you -
pull not at my still form
for the boat leaves by day
and the city of night
to whence it retreats
is my only light
2006
Anti-poem
i hate poetry
most of it
not that i've read
much
tired of tired words
lying on the page
trying to be clever
- whatever
i don't write poems
either i just
put down
whatever comes to me
2008
Byronic Urge
I found a scrap of paper, on which was written:
Byronic urge
to which I think I murmured "I'm no Byron"
Don Juan
Sweet Childe in time
"and when not meditating
probably wanking"
Garden 0 Sylph
Quick white breast
amongst
the tussocks
Deep in the forest
". must to India"
A distant calling in his heart
yearning - not knowing - feeling
a word - unyielding - to &
fro-ing
foot to dusky India
Foot to Morris Olford
dusty soul
planted
!
B A M
indigo blue
thought he found his lover
a stroller
fig plum under
believe - twitch
train and bus to Ganesh
& that thing
yeah
what would he find? perpetua
& the answer
in
I N D I A
train through rocky graze
& punch
rails
opposite a man in linen
who spake of Ireland
a convent there
a refined air
around
me
towers
rise like the rocks that part Hispania's
land from Gaul
didn't bother me at all
a well
a fish
I stood and dropped my mind in -
the fish ate it
all my thoughts went through the fish's guts
it was lively
it was velveteen
fifteen inch spanner
portwine news
how to hold on to the figurine?
how to print the news today?
2007
prosaic fusebox doll
empty paper
fills her head
while the unspent impulses
play themselves out internally
i seek an inky end
a suitable epilogue
to useless hours
of woeful wanking
and unwisely tweaking thoughts
passtimes appropriate
to the dejected fop
internal wires pop
one by one and fizz
the effort of creation
the flashes of insight
have left her a face of burnt holes
vacantly unable to follow conversations
when her lips elope with my words
it's like
dragged onto the bank
a body afloat on the river
was fed patient breaths
but spirit freed from flesh
won't easily return
maybe i have just one more spark in me for you
the voltage burns from the temples down
when suddenly i touch the paper
- and with a jolt
the heartbeat returns -
i turn you on
and you turn on me
my scarred creature
a whole lifetime of effusions i have built
to fill this restaurant bill
attack that plate
flap your lips at food
i spoon my loveliest words at you
as if you were capable of eating
2010
The Lobe
tigers and bathers
crescent over water
in an ebon pool
a peacock in prison
in a pen
of peahen
man stands in the image | mirage thin
white dhoti at full mast
his smile a bird polishing the sky
in the room
in a wardrobe in the room
woman sits in lotus
outside a child
in passing might think:
‘I hear a sound’
2007
After Verlaine
after many
years
the poet
and his lover
reunite
she hands him
an oar
and he slips
into the warm water
later they lie still
as the razor
spilling persimmon flowers
into this splendid bed
2008
for Adrienne
17.08.09
do you hear that sound? a very distant bell
an alarm in another room - muffled human beings' lovemaking
there will come a day soon when we will eat these words
and bludgeoned be subdued to the natural gag in us
the waves from two revolutions are to collide in the middle of the ocean
and no-one will know for battered fish do not float
a soldier lifts himself onto the field of your passion
the words you crafted are bloody and naked like the soldier's body
you have absorbed me, my thought, the shadow which falls
in my hand and becomes altered - these are your fingers
fifteen thousand days since you wrote your ghazals to ghalib
the riches of which i heard rumour through all this time are here
go under and go under! and do not speak again your death
41 years from today we will awaken and rise up, if we have life
through the streets the canaries are selling newspapers
i hear their song and know that i am breathing
2009
machine head
the original maths
that impregnated
these gears
rolling about the sun-gear
this stampede
of automata
is soothingly in tune
from a distance
but up close
it hurts
unresolved
occasionally
the envelope opens
revealing its teeth
as a poet
i long
to escape
the paralysis of mechanics
for this my heart throbs
and my pen wants a fuck
2010
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