four long minutes

(all napo2022 entries so far)                      
                        
Ispiral\                        
                        
as ten  to one                        
                         
This con,                        
Glistening on the April sun                        
All millstone-above-the-dawn,                        
Cushioned on a blossoming twig.                        
                         
This past has not passed                        
Refuse no joy                        
                         
Where the spindly                          
spinal                        
  chord  withers                        
down                          
Habits expect that..                        
                         
you are so far away                        
   from the end of your journey                        
                         
                         
And with no morning word                        
                         
 scarless martins                        
ascend their pillow                        
                         
as mute as the house                        
  As mute as a mouse                        
all  Downy                        
  moon                        
All rising sun                        
                            
                         
                         
All slander to the white fur,                        
   the milk-jewels                        
Of a fashion show                        
                         
                         
                         
Bellybutton                        
                         
Your pale blue dress                        
A cut-up liner torn from the bottom drawer                        
  pulled apart,                        
  pepper-sprayed.                        
The collar lace stained                          
eternal  as newly thatched lawn.                        
                         
                         
You shut up shop on a badgered verse                        
Your palm oil, your fingered hair-triggered line                        
  like glue from the creatures tongue,                        
its shattered vein, its punctured lung                          
                         
You slept in a hungry dust bowl                        
All accumulations                        
      over winter dry linen                        
Awoke with jellyfish above your mind                        
  and your dress catches                        
  and floats                        
It swims upon their pool.                        
                         
                         
                         
                         
                         
Seraphic nuthin’                        
                         
As your beluga eye,                        
  a single caviar                        
caresses the shale,                        
undresses by the breccia                        
in the stream,                        
                         
and recovered for air                        
 for dredging,                        
awful, lawless men                        
and their funnel nest                        
hairless ideas                        
                         
There you would towel their backs                        
And shake their hands                        
  whilst                        
pickpocketing, cut pursing                        
feasting through cracks in a performance.                        
                         
And all the time I saw you looking                        
I was                        
cloaked in burrs,                        
gasping cod English oil,                        
gagging on some smog too sore for sound                        
and too limbless starving                        
to dine with you.                        
                         
                         
                         
                         
RE post quiet                        
                         
                         
I bought from the close                        
A marauding luck                        
And I am blind to its post                        
                         
I saw a life go                        
Held its hand                        
The room was breath-white                        
With morning rising                        
   to a last hum and hurl                        
                         
In fields, an excavation                        
Hawks are throwing down pennies                        
Morels of coal,                        
Lustreless watches,                        
In the backpack twisted open                        
Catching whatever was pardoning …                        
                         
I was never ever rich enough                        
To walk you home                        
Answer your questions                        
slow down                          
                         
                         
                         
                         
Hungary                        
                         
I saw you rip                        
 the gauze from  the horizon                        
And fall and stay and dress-up in doubt                        
                         
  When your legs are crossed                        
The limeade drips and  stings                        
And runs down your knee                          
                         
This  polaroid blur                          
As you stand                        
And shake your skirt                        
Your 16mm haven                        
                         
Sharing with white bears                        
 their black-out last snowstorm of the year                        
Driving in and out,                        
in blips and bleeps                        
Always rambling, mooring                        
On arbor arms                        
                         
When I last saw your paw print sticky                        
And jam soaked                          
  Jesus had held his cross                        
With a bottle                          
     Sinking                        
          With weeds                          
                         
                         
                         
                         
black spring                        
                         
                         
If I ever saw past your roslyn blinking,                        
yearning under-claw,                        
Past the soft gargoyles leaning, lurking,                        
                         
over the holloway                        
  through the church yard                        
to the park, I would join you                        
where trefoil in stupor coil                        
   for baby willow herb,                          
And meadowsweet, Lornica                        
 hoover their languid November slips                        
                         
And spacious orchids cut their moon-early cloth,                          
turn down their ankle socks                        
rearrange the clovers bitter cargo                          
and sullenly                        
place opal and wine for the pyramid.                        
                         
                         
                         
                         
                         
The Rainbow                        
                         
That harbouring spot,                        
two hundred lifetimes                        
  renegotiating a contract,                        
pondering what final lisp                        
 from the breath of                          
his decaying golden smudge                        
would witness, validate then end me.                        
                         
A harmful fluttering wave,                          
a collapsed lung,                        
A finger and thumb                        
caked in mud                        
pinning my aorta to a blackboard.                        
                         
Though I imagine                        
I would sniff every brittle anima gland                        
of his traumatised touch and pat                        
on the curlicue’d form of corpus Mundi.                        
Cracking and frostbitten,                        
like stick snaps                        
 echoing in the woods.                        
                       
                       
Keep it - remain pure                      
                       
With the lapsang dripping from my tongue                      
Into a coiled measure, a 6 6 sick tumblerful.                      
I would drown in an image.                      
                       
As the eyeball is                      
a coal pit which is a playground                        
I would await the attendant.                      
                       
Recording angels surround you                      
They say that there can never be two absolutes.                      
Their caryatid wallpaper, an air apparent                      
With  eternal palimpsests,                      
                       
Scribbles of a child, sartorial                        
honest and laughing                      
Then overwritten, scratched- out                        
All photograph destroyed.                      
                       
Each manifestation a solid                      
configuration formed by chance events                      
The mislaid manuscript concludes…                      
                     
                     
coats of glass and metal                      
                     
The bleak taps on the shoulder;                      
the dusty sill and saw of little reminders                      
  on every noted moment                      
cull the cold cliff from each desire                      
                     
because                      
without your wet plate hair,                      
  your collodion stare,                      
without your flower-chain dangling over me                      
and your sugar breath                      
  laying eggs a millimetre on my neck,                      
                     
I cannot open the blinds,                      
  unlock the door,                      
discern a plausible form                      
under the violence of artificial light.                      
                     
I throw pales of silver nitrate                      
over hanging sheets                      
in hope of your silhouette.                      
                     
                     
the cleaners chorus                    
                     
wipe away the steam from your fingertips,                    
flush the congealing wake from your eyes,                    
mop up the butcher’s floor…                    
the lights are flickering.                    
                     
brighten the corners                    
learn to breathe out                    
call your boss                    
phone in dead                    
                     
understand all expiry dates                    
of a poem, a love letter                    
                     
and if the shiver of its piano                      
stills brings you to your knees                    
                     
slip back the shoplifted book,                    
lift another, hollow it out,                    
as you would hollow                      
out your prayers, accidental                    
 or otherwise                    
and make it as a tin-whistle                      
with a song like a fox with all its teeth bare.                    
                   
                   
                   
a nurses salutation                    
                   
an unrighteous day ahead                    
carefully trying to walk the right spell                    
this  hollow yellowhammer path,                    
mute as a tomb                    
with wood anemones tracing                    
                   
 and their woody lunar yearns                    
crowbarring  my claw toes,                    
brushing the heel spur,                    
pinching the hangnails and narwhals,                    
 the porpoise and wren.                    
                   
silver bunting birds                    
 are alive wondering                    
how to return in favor                    
 their Asia God and river,                    
 to answer in pitch perfect bluebell hay                    
a ringing,  long soft good morning.                    
                   
                   
                   
orange ink on pleats                  
                   
you fell holy onward                  
over fences                  
with thunder claps in your ears                  
                   
I saw the deepening  running prints                  
in  drained and monoculture’d fields,                  
the sunning moon,                    
a pearl-strained  starfish light,                  
cursing  dirty and pregnant clay.                  
                   
you asked that                    
 I remove my paint speckled glasses                  
and through a fumidor’d reluctance                    
you gave a  compliment                  
with a  tone so ornery, testy and moored.                  
                   
and the last time I  heard your voice                  
your dress was so muddy,                  
you wore boots                    
a shellac cane,                  
percival gloves                  
with                  
wide-eyed assurity                  
 you fell again                  
and stumbled again                  
and fell                  
and gods I had to know.                  
                   
Waxpaper                  
                 
I could hardly spit out                  
 the liquid                  
paste                  
that had gathered                  
in the plaque covered,                  
honey-glazed cavities                  
of my wisdom teeth.                  
                 
though the tongue may have a white coating                  
hold a hand high and repeat                  
pop the pill and insist                  
the strep tongue lie                  
about my self.                  
                 
                 
lieth                  
you poetic bore                  
you poet bore                  
                 
unknown in a lettuce field,                  
huddled under paint buckets,                  
waxpaper, albumen.                  
                 
I once had culture.                  
It gratefully slid through my fingers,                  
the waxed corner                  
 of a screwed-up, piece of paper                  
from a notebook of cave drawings                  
I made                  
    lost                  
 between                  
two council estate garages.                  
                 
                 
                 
you said something special                
                 
                 
I sleep soullessly,                
exhausted imbition and functionless                
                 
I wake-up one cigarette dry,                
one bible quote damned                
one wet dream away                
 from a smidgeon of confidence.                
                 
the stairwell down echoes a catholic hum                
some cut lamb dripping                  
some innocence dominated.                
                 
I mop up a breakfast,                
 wonder if I constantly pray                  
 until I can find the earth,                
the earth on a plug.                
                 
I have no jewellery, no tattoos,                
no hair, no scars, no politics,                
no culture, no opinions.                
                 
I still have the cut-outs                
 from the porn mags                
I stole from my dad.                
                 
I fell unbearably in love                
 too many times                
before I turned 10.                  
                 
My cup is empty.                
I have no cups.                
                 
                 
  What the seeds will meet                
               
               
Confiscated and put-away,                
a passage of time                
reserved for a later date.                
               
 And eloquence, my darling love                
you half-step moan lightly,                
a parchment rising belly,                
a flat pressed stamen sigh                
from an anemone cup.                
               
It lifts and …                
loss of faith interruption.                
               
Fermenting void poloroid,                
destroyed, implored and should                
the fever beans spill onto your lap,                
my arrested head collapsed.                
               
A black-tape soul                
sang                
in                
deafening overdose.                
               
               
                 
 you are a cinematographer              
               
see me through              
without presumptions.              
               
a scent of                
               
the stream with its path alongside,              
it curls through into another                
               
and along the edge of a field  to where              
               
it leads to the damn,                
named the Third damn.              
Two swans foggy in a net curtain              
and three cygnets, grey in duff down,              
circle and glide and graciously                
draw the windows of the sky down.              
               
I place              
my tent, cloister and flask              
my camera and want              
and tea in monochrome,              
 and hope in patience for                
an unknowable inkling or urge.              
A scythe that could hollow me                
so the outer could stuff the inner.              
               
I take twenty-five photographs in all,              
twenty-five breaths.              
Twenty-five delicate other thoughts.              
               
                
  heavenly cavaties              
             
             
 the last time              
 I sat waiting there,              
accidentally catholic,              
absent mindedly indoors,              
so inside,              
   that the pallbearers              
would write goodbye notes              
 on every upturn of a lisping fuck,              
             
I noticed seventeen              
velveteen              
   moles in parade,              
in plum ostrich,              
in shoes and collars              
   and ties loose,              
dig hungrier and deeper              
for one morsel more.              
for one thing lacking more              
for one unstable golden filling more.              
             
and on my knees,              
the topsoil is turned and ploughed,              
the wild shrubs raised,              
and piles of excavated soil              
slip back into the lake.              
             
             
eys’r glycerin            
             
             
as it all pans wide,            
mirroring lunatic starlight,            
the land sleeps            
 lightly on the arboretum            
floor.            
             
the slight of hand            
to brush the focus lake and pale,            
             
to single out the lightness of pneuma            
   neatly under-exposed,            
study the form,            
the speckle underlying the process              
and print / press on paper.            
             
i am bound to a collage            
of tenuous glue            
and linen thread            
             
wrapping the surface            
of the drama of spectacles            
in a ram’s tail            
of velour drone            
and venusian fur.              
             
             
           
drawing room            
           
laying at low tide            
my jawbone under your sugar lip            
no expression should grow back again            
           
and to think you can just stop studying            
           
touching your shirt            
the ink stains and bleached-out spider webs            
no pins or needles in your fingers            
           
they are how your hands tangle            
           
with the daylight movement            
and the curtain’s sun            
closing the door            
           
when it was dark you came            
never drawing a murmur            
hushed a sweet child            
to peace and was gone            
           
           
   A dove the Fly          
         
She swallows the kingcup          
if not all at once          
 then morsel-by-morsel          
 by each birth          
of a waterfall,          
 and each dawn of a shiver          
 in quieting rapture.          
         
The course of the moment          
resembling falling,          
 falling suspended          
like a feather in a memory          
or the  soft gong of          
buddha-child tripping          
 over          
         
The lameness and halting          
hesitation          
 of recognising the genius          
of a finished flower by its pallor.          
         
I swallow the fly          
and the sun is capsizing,          
To taste the yoke          
 of each wing          
the subtle virgule          
of each leg,          
the scripture on her abdomen.          
         
                
         
the zari spun        
         
the april soma        
 a foals belly,          
         
laboratory rats          
frequently ask          
their knowledge out        
of here.        
         
and        
a bloody soil on my boots, my hands        
with a slap of sticky tape        
 over my eyes        
only now I wonder        
what is acceptable.        
         
They, they they,          
gaslight          
blot out the sun        
they turn one face away        
over their mono-cultured field        
and it’s inheretance.        
A chosen one is sustainable.        
         
Is it worth so much when I taste it.        
         
i catch a silver thread        
spun through the beluga        
to the forest floor          
screaming, get out of the water,        
get out of the woods.        
       
       
       
       
company        
       
       
ascension in,        
funeral cloth out        
       
i wonder when the air apparent        
and its needle fingernails        
finally washes me        
 as acid leaching,        
that it would pin-pick each cell        
down to its naked bone,        
to its tinder        
       
       
then  dress me,        
coat me heavy with a tie and links,        
around the neck and wrist,        
along the voice and choicelessness.        
with a slack leather for my pudgy form        
and my clueless posture        
       
every millimetre, microscopic        
particle screaming        
for its other        
       
of which the phantasm gazes        
       
and repeats and repeats.        
       
       
one sins and be’s the other.        
       
       
       
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste      
       
       
the sound of the key in the lock      
twisted to the chill      
       
and  I wanted to steer      
and return to the highlands      
all the fault-lines and fissures,      
the hegemony of this inheritance.      
       
It had stuck on my veins      
this airy evidence,      
       
a lead feather floating in a memory      
       
       
and I postulate its existence now      
every mini-skirted,        
sexy milisecond      
       
the hands around my neck,      
the crease, the expansions,        
the mass swelling of a child’s world view      
       
and still the dumb rubber      
of believing      
that you were sent to me, honey      
       
     
     
solstice bows      
     
     
you are able to conjure      
from under your skin      
the trees sycamore name and spread      
in the fields of a burnt umbering recital,      
and the bramble  paths between      
 too original      
for cowardly flakes to take.      
     
and from over the porch,      
your voice swings and sings      
with an unction seeping      
into the greenfinch sleeping,      
for the robin’s weeping      
and a blackbird’s keeping.      
     
the sad sneer in your face,      
watery and baggy eyes,      
always a silent word slips out      
     
your throats      
 are thirty years and thirty centuries      
old, with your hair      
swathed around      
chestnutting around butter,      
wild barley in the air.      
     
     
re-entering church      
     
There was a sound,      
a stroking hymnal wave      
like  a hand that would paw the skin    
for malicious knots,    
for burrs or mud.    
     
It was a mothering,    
cosseting  sound      
that one could hum    
 to a dirty child,    
to clear the corners of the mouth    
and scrub behind the ears    
untie the grass stains    
whiling over the knees.    
     
     
And this gently admonishing    
 reverb would echo    
in the chancels    
of our streets.    
     
As a boy I tried to kill another boy    
with a knife.    
And behind    
the collar I wore    
and the lamb stew that I ate,    
and the hare I was told to strangle,    
and the shaking    
and the reverance    
and the lead-heavy dreams;    
the gaggle of church bells    
entreating in their lay.    
     
     
     
 on palms    
   
in sense,    
seen wondering    
about our bodies.    
   
in poor posture,    
 just the ground    
on which we lay    
and the desert    
 in which we walk.    
   
in crowds    
you swear there is nobody present,    
we kept the postcards,    
the views    
of a deserted island.    
   
in the cul-de-sac,    
you do not like leaving,    
I could not do the same again today.    
The self-defence,    
the self-defence will    
punch me in the face.    
   
in small white lies,    
in hand-me-down,    
off-white bed sheets,    
the instagrams of dirty, dirty  laundry    
hanging,    
lustrating in baptismal waters.    
   
   
     
 vacant neighbourhoods  
   
   
I lift cement,  
I slowly slow  
mop  
the salesman  
from the porch  
   
aquí las autoridades  
    están alerta  
   
the origins  
of sucking the airgun  
pellets  
from birds  
   
my mind is a tin foil paste  
 of lemonade and bacteria  
I am constantly under prepared  
   
y mis sueños  
  son hermosos  
     pero improbables  
   
the senile graduation gowns  
the choral flutes and sutures,  
invest in the futures,  
   
we are a growing human species,  
 speciously plausible    
but underused.  
 
 
Adventures in the steelworks  
 
I wait in dark, dusty rooms  
overlooking furnaces,  
life has no form here  
 and a tepid fester in the air.  
 
A buzz parades the passage  
Dank windows, yellow and haunted  
with mantel dust, ancient and grey  
 
Litter decorates the lids on the furnaces below  
thrown from these windows.  
I sit on a table, my head  
leaning against one of the windows,  
watching the cranes unload the soakers  
with glittering orange billets,  
 
The room rumbles with every movement  
and I silently pile the dust on the ledge  
into small mounds.  
I rub my finger hard into the wood  
attempting to create a small clean area  
no matter, the dust stubbornly remains  
grey-green, grey-blue, grey-yellow.  
 
Two saucepans sit beside me on the table  
each half-filled with dirty, grubby water.  
The saucepans themselves were rusty, dead,  
surreal and belonging to ghosts.  
Behind me a two ring stove,  
brown and feeble.  
I am in a ghosts kitchen playing  
with the ashes of a dead cook,  
overlooking rotten teabags  
decaying on the rooms  
of fiery hell.  
 
One of the workers enters,  
greets me with an ‘arrate pal?’  
He opens, then flings something  
 out of the window  
He walks towards me on the table,  
I excuse myself and watch him  
pick up one of the saucepans.  
In his hand is a tin of something.  
I spit and walk out of the room.  
 
 
 
bluebell
 
flat out
  on an island,
a feather bed of autumn leaves.
The choir of encircling bluebells
are nodding, I am old unlocking...
 
upholstered cloisters  
with their chintz
hanging a gothic chime.
 
My eyes are goose-lips,
a random patchwork,
 mistaken for
sutures on a face.
 
There lay no depth of culture
 within our antiphony
Both our shallow roots
vulnerable to jack boots,
piss rash and cliche.
 
Our angry kitsch,
(a finger loosens my shirt)  
asks for a frenzy,
 for a soft collar
and leash to drag us apart.