Tag: speculum

Lore   Knowledge, as a dish of elusive ice-cubes Floating in acid Touching each one, propels its elusiveness;   The mediation of the utensil cannot be avoided.   Acid me, hand me, cube me; Cuddling smudges, polychromatic pollution, Knowledge spectrum.   He must make a memory of solid metal, So that it cannot be penetrated by knowledge, So that the […]

The Musician’s Testament “Being a living legend is such a precarious livelihood. What a ducking of responsibility!” (John Cale) “Success means being worried about everything else except money” (Johnny Cash) I’m putting down this last eyewitness account leading up to zero hour because all the registers have gone into the red; everything’s going to blow. If I am stopped in […]

Ritual Roots Trains: Stringing, ringing, lifting, Breathing meringues, with pores distended at the termini   Contraction is needed for piercing of bars And holing of tickets.   The breaking of one deadlock only Institutes another, more firm, In the hand and in the basket.   More futile by far than any old bird’s weak flight Through a Church, a hall […]

Growth Before Buildings   Wood piles beneath the shallow permanent stone Firm feet upon the yielding bog Let water in – the wood’s grain will prevail through its lines Let water out – white softness will grow to draw things down   The foundations could be called organic, So people longed to analyse          to scrutinize   Trade silver mercury Sweep […]

Ever River Prime time, swallowed whole Could the universe, just once Have poured itself into a molecule So that, thereafter, Nothing could flow?   Never to suckle a broken circuit For sparking life; Never split by caesarean pangs Of primal punctures.   Black hole never thinned to liquid Boiling mud foundation pustules Turning all to gas.   All words now […]

Tangled Drawing the cross slices tramline nuggets, Sizing out torture’s cavity, Wrenching the hopeful – slashes, threads all.   The anchor is split, tossed on a shroud, The elements burgeoning right. The chain is rusted, marking starfish, Shakes in a ticking melody.   Calipers rented, mayhem dented, Cholesterol’s bulb fouls the maggots away; All pupae are gelled, numb triplets they […]

Power Kernels   Break down the elements, split them To non-existence; Then shatter all solidity’s illusions, Free impulses Beyond the viscous mind, still feeling hard By vanity’s gas upholstered.   And then, for happiness’s definition, Shut the door; Relax, and don’t be squeamish; For every grit of teeth, a pull of trigger, A sear, a cloud . . .   […]

Cremation   I’ve always believed in cremation; Flames bleach the world, unclutter living things.   Let scum survivors, grasshoppers Leave cemeteries a mess Of living impulses dismembered. Not knowing fire’s totality But sickly honouring it stunting In tortured carbon stench.   I’ve always believed in cremation Ever since I read of great skull mountains; Those potash handfuls are so clean […]

Complacency You had the world eat from your hand And thought you had it made To fade into your fantasies.   Nobody came to put you down, And so you never rose; You smiled and sang in blindness And your wine glass sweetly flattered you.   Supremely bored, And worshipping the needs that passed you by You paused, to consult […]

Dark Dream Out came the swarms of shadow things To make their dead messages, To find their story-forms, Glinting chitin delighting, Reeding the pitches.   Down went the depths, encased and ethered, Numbing us to touch the greater.   Down went the coils of lit signs, And made the questions dark and known, And made the answers dark and known […]