#150 - here come the dancers

1.6.20

151

here come the dancers

mourning poem/general eulogy

you want to be with them again

just for a while

who were first in the conversation

and gave the word to start

how like unlike the ancestors are

a little further back unknown

few go to guess

climb down the tree

it’s autumn ends deciduous

how far will we fall?

forget that…

here come the dancers

ballroom pink gin capstans green

a whirl and weekend joy

hunting scenes to deck the walls

consider miscarried sibling before me

and synchromesh, formica

nice work if you can get it

lower gears for steeper hills

we will never hear their voices

it’s godlurk in the premises

beards of cloud, skies thunder

you want to pick over the bones

and they can take a joke

sing along with the bouncing ball

over a bridge to have been

you want to ask how it was for them

pretty well all too much information

grandfather was a gambler, and girlfriends!

who can count?

the other one had poxy mates

another family altogether

each of them in his own way, hero

not much more is known

all long suffering the women

hospital ends

before that I have misimagined

tribes of swept plain

go on still ahead of myself

too far and further

who were those people in the dream

where I have been before?

reed rafts, raids

full blown invasions

what did they do with their toenails?

how did they wipe their bums?

molten throne, priest toppler

the queen run round – loose chook

head severed in her hands

and that’s our precious spelling

which end of the pogrom were you?

then there is a holy land

and someone expelled for fruit salad breakfast

blame the Romans otherwise

you wouldn’t credit this mob

no seeing them

but keep a museum of things they once lost

they filled the day with hours somehow

all that they built was to blow away

as nameless as faceless as solid as fact

who were they really?

you tell me

everyone wants to know his her own story

so much they did for our own good

and you’ll thank them one day

they for instance invented this notation

particle physics, elaborate rhymes

every idea you’ll never live up to

except for that one Carmelite

the mind’s eye always has them dancing

upright of course come-to-the-fact horizontal

never a prayer that I might be

takes me back to a single cell

and make a dash to the finishing line

wasn’t even the start…

so many different stories!

never know who to believe

rumours are running around us – wild

and in our young filthy minds

imagine a great big bang 

#150 - rough draft or too much space junk or somewhere else altogether

31.5.20

150

rough draft

or

too much space junk

or

somewhere else altogether

only one world

only world where 

I am befriended

black cockies in the creek first thing

take them for a sign

off ponder paws first

where else alone with such thoughts?

no, never alone

not on ice floe with plankton

alliance of sorts, dalliance

object always, credulity

this is the place with the superstitions

live streaming sun

to thick the air with seeing

to creep crepuscular other end of

memories!             

you tell me where else

have you heard a leaf fall

and take my time – you see me

feel at home here?

someone is hammering

someone’s hard at it

blessing and bliss

there is of course self-righteousness

this is the genital world

‘meant to be’

is nothing towards

unless take up intention

this is the one with rocket and blast off

here we come out of the scope

and heavens above!

others are alive with lightning

pour poisonous volcanoes up

yes, some may well be solid gold

but where are all these words here from?

you see – it’s by analogy, imagination too

not exactly clockwork

others are as moonlit, more

some faster slower

many run round

let’s never forget the infinite empty between

and you won’t call it air

or even get a word out

not without fine suit

good gadgetry

fearlessness – lest we forget

no one else has ache or itch

where else hang head in shame

or hold my hand?

imagine it – floating monument

it hasn’t really got a name

because it could have been goldilocks elsewhere

and maybe yet we are?

leaf twirl world

table cloth too

buy anything on e-bay

we won’t have two moments the same

only here!

this is the cheap trick world

please people DIY

pour scorn

count the wasted years

here it’s dangle pizzle

meets origin of universe

the muscle world

and sidle up

only world where anyone’s born

or does

or goes between

world as green as I am to it

world as blue as up

and misted in

say redwoods

see stubble from high up above

also see the razor

tell the truth

no better place for it

night – day, I had a dream

you won’t get that just anywhere

or inkling precious – take the trees

no, better leave them be

dangerous world

mum say ‘could get skittled’

substances abuse me

I’m tired so take a nap

think of a mythical creature

that’s me too you too

knock knock

three walk into a bar

no other where flutter 

how brief the griefs – our home grown throne 

fools are absent elsewhere

this is the one where they’re counting

I think we must have the fluffiest clouds

you can call me parochial

it’s the only one with prepositions

only one with verbs

are there elsewhere pictures?

yes, but we’ve seen them here

this is the genuine article

you and me

these words with us

idiots who’ll know it all

idiots who listen

many more creatures curled up in fear

less of them every day

idea of in charge or any other

this is the world where the ink runs out

fogged hoist I hear the music

this is the only world with chairs

there’s nowhere else you can guess

by tooth, claw, red in

cuddle up so loved

think hatred, revenge

you saw it first here

and yet to tour

but suffer the children

finely tuned, timed

life – a synchronized event

swim fittest

this is the one with piano

does someone else tap toes?

only pixelated

one with throes

nowhere else to die these days

someone licks my paw

let’s rub

it’s only one with ping pong

or take off your pants

birds do

where else belated?

erstwhile?

ballet music

space junk

jog on the spot to be warm

only one with a mirror to see

everything full of gods

takes a breath

goes grieving

this one swings a tail

only one in time

still late but world it

nevertheless

only this one in the poem

I’m still beginning again 

#149 - the battle hymn

30.5.20

149

the battle hymn

America’s burning again

United Sates thereof, I mean

it lightens the heart to have illusions flame up like this

to see what we must see

(Canada’s a cot case, the South is only just catching alight)

the US of A is burning again

‘fine ideals’ or some will say

they set themselves on fire  

no one else would do it

they had to, you did

(don’t know whether to address you or third person drift

… mix match…

frequently I imagine I’m you

wake up in a cold sweat… brackets still open

you’ll get this with melting pot

cup runneth over with flame

always something messianic there going down

it’s always someone else’s America

and here we are again

enough gas and coal to go on forever

but now, in the streets… this fire!

think of it merely as lighting the way

intestinal rumble, a hunger for it

or must have been the masses

but no, none of that, they have none…

the citizens!  look how equal they all are

everyone gets a say

America bays for its own blood

(drunk all the rest)

queue up

you could choke on it

have you seen how the numbers go up?

teeter brink of why-call-it-curve?

you get dizzy

cook crack

come off a high

prohibition’s been such a hit!

would you like a new war with that as a side?

won’t matter which

main thing’s to be there – boots on the ground

pride cometh before the reap-what-you-sow

there’s no more proverbial place on the planet

it’s everything cinema, house is on fire

I wonder if anyone lived here before?

it’s not as if this is a first warning

three strikes?

something mutually assured?

duck cover

have to be first person shooter

that’s me behind trigger in selfie

teeth and the rest so dazzlingly white

live stream it

can’t blame me – I didn’t vote

you can’t make me

streets are on fire

it’s an angry age

blame the Asia – after all these years rising

still want my car

don’t they know who’s

boss tribe in charge?

I do and I’d like a ranch next door

let me be puppy

love to chew on a chain

or set me on some infidel

I’ll bring home the bone

America’s dancing on its own grave

big belly laugh

bingeing again

nobody does this stuff nearly as well

hey, try out this chair – it’s electric!

America! it was you made the Depression great!

self-belief!

and comes with wretched refuse

let them all eat cotton candy

can’t take a trick

the starving all wish up on the ladder

tread on their fingers, and if they fall

it’s televised – you can watch it all go to woe

and now the drowning have climbed on board

each zombie hauls at least the one ghost

e pluribus unum – we took the lot

you did the gunship thing once to prise Japan

so many things come back to haunt

… but not if you don’t take your irony pills

tragedy? or make mine farce?

I love it most when they build a great wall

neighbours say ‘there goes America’

sad complacent nod

they’re used to this sort of thing

remember Ike and the Mausoleum?

think Ray-Gun, Bushes two –

so many practice runs

have to say I do blame Noah Webster

America, you’ve elected Grim Reaper again

except not really – skip college, count the votes

in the catatombs with President Virus

never gets up from the couch except golf

was it childhood?  something since?

let me get the latest firearm

(God, give me this right)

still only so many feet to shoot

well, why not make them dance?

make it another big budget western

high noon saloon swagger

now they’re burying burying burying

and this time it’s your own again

must have a talent for it

get in their way and you go in the ground

it’s breathless there with progress

and you can hear the rust

they’ve put Cretan liar in charge of the truth

things could go either way

Liberty wears Justice’s blindfold

better not look at all

you’re more incarcerated than ever

the facts of the matter are locked up as well

with Julian and Chelsea

and old Joe Hill

my, what long long arms you have

better to be great powerful friend

and shall we say set free?

oh say can you see!

stand on a man’s neck till he’s dead

that’ll show who doesn’t matter

how’s your Mall of America now?

I call that kind of thing kindling

we’re expecting a shake in California

New York’s come down with it’s-not-the-flu

I was in the woods with Thoreau

once FDR and turn on a dime

fire some rockets into space

no one will feel a thing

I, too, have lived in that box

                with the colours

pizza delivered, jazz on demand

I understand the genius   

took the pill to uncrazy a little

been sorry for myself ever since

and sorrier again

let it not be as long as Rome was

you’re like every empire ever

none of the rest of us are

America, when will you ever be worthy

of this decline and fall ?