Poetry W – The Recusant

Poetry W

Lynn White

Lynn White was born in Sheffield in 1945 and now lives in north Wales. Her poetry is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/

Gaza in Fall

In the rain of the rockets

there’s no water.

Metal rain.

In the rain of the rockets

there’s no sunshine.

Smoke rain.

Black rain.

In the rain of the rockets

there’s no life.

Death rain.

Life ending rain.

Death without life rain.

In the rain of the rockets

there’s no hope.

Deaf rain.

Death rain

Death refrain

…………..

Ground Force Gaza

This poem is an update.

I wish it wasn’t.

The original was written in 2014.

I didn’t expect to write a sequel,

but here we are again.

One hour to leave

carrying what you can

knowing everything you love

will be destroyed

behind you.

Who could do this?

People could not do it.

Could not do the things they did.

Soldiers.

Things in uniform obeying orders,

yes sir no sir-ing their way into oblivion.

They could do it.

They would do anything, if told to.

Humanity suspended or cuckooed.

Killing machines, destroyers of dreams,

burying them in the rubble with the bits.

With the bits of bodies,

the hands and the feet,

the breasts and the balls.

Things in uniform.

Daleks of death.

They could do it.

Maybe if enough things die

they will stop their slaughter.

Maybe if enough things die

they will become extinct

like the dodo,

the stuff of legend

like the unicorn.

I hope so.

Michael Wyndham

A Night In January 1991

You found an abandoned notepad,

and inside, a poem penned by

you titled ‘The New Crusade’.

It is dated 17^th January 1991,

the night ‘Gulf War One’

exploded live via CNN.

Memories of the evening return:

the glee of your father’s fantasy

of the restoration of conscription;

his vision of you marching Arabian

lands bedecked in Desert DPM

and rifle. Your mother, heckling,

revealing his TB-fakery to dodge

the Korean call-up in a conspiracy

of flu, gin, and a bung to a ‘bent’ GP.

Your brother, allowed to stay up

late to enjoy the show, jerking

his Game Boy as if conducting

the bombing on screen, while BBC

news anchors praised the accuracy

of B-52s blasting their targets.

Alan Weadick

The Workshop

When the heat miraculously did make waves

and shadowless twos and threes of things

I didn’t want to climb or scald on,

the workshop with its underfoot murk

of machines and tools was an eye-rest.

I rarely saw a car deflate itself to a fuming

stop inside those breeze block walls but I did believe

the smoking kitchens of some squat city came

to cool their heels there: More than one

Bain-Marie reclined in grease-stained aprons;

up-ended potato-peelers sang their lowest notes, at a push;

fan-blades lay like a rainforest plane-crash;

cold-steel canopies were lava-blackened.

And my father made his own weather:

inside, through an elephant’s graveyard

of scaffolding poles and un-walked planks

the sparks from the orange flame shooting

from gloved fingertips illuminated an underworld

reachable only by way of his black-masked eyes.

He did not need to pick apart what he had on his hands

to master it, completely. As he lay the torch down

and the blue flame sighed at our feet

the storm that had passed over, as they all did,

left us silent and sweat-stung in its wake.

The cauterised scar on the mended machine

mirrored the smiling lips that would emerge

from behind the mask into that idling future

I was careless enough to wish for.

This poem first appeared in The Children of the Nation: Working People’s Poetry from Contemporary Ireland edited and introduced by Jenny Farrell (Culture Matters, 2019)

Phil Wood

Paying for our Heritage

That African mask, painted with ochre,
threaded with hair sucking on bones,
its lively chatter of jungle tones
ghost the gilded themes of this tour.

The shadows ink across splendid
portraits. Those Gainsborough ladies
in genteel gardens – water lilies
and roses – lives slavishly scented.

This crowded cafe bubbles with chit-chat,
a broth of varied voices. We’ve paid
for tea and homemade cake. I check
my ‘Diary of a Country Parson’.

What sugared past do we consume
and trust in our comfortable rooms?

Elysium

I hear the bellow from the mother tree,
the farmer’s field a grid for deadly seed,
those profits keep our children hunger free.
I hear the bellow from the mother tree,
the profit man harvesting city greed,
this wonder feeds our minds with mutant breed.
I hear the bellow from the mother tree,
the farmer’s field a grid for deadly seed.

Aberfan

Out of the corner of my eye
I spy a girl chasing a ball
spinning down the sloping streets.

The terraces thread the cwm, glisten
a rosary of hope. Through the rain
ghosts of truant boys hurtle past.

Their hair’s wetted coal-black; their eyes
water weighted, near blind;
they chase the girl pursuing her world.

The wind is a miner whistling tunes
out of habit. The shift’s over –
the mine sparkles a bracelet of ponds.

These ghosted boys, their molecules
shimmer in watery lungs: they’re out
of breath. The girl splashes puddles.

The body of a miner is sixty
percent water. It’s less for wives.
And when I knock on my gran’s door

I hear the slowness of her tears
soften my words. I unwrap gossip.
Her boys are long departed.

Rainy Days

Clay clung to her boots -‘ta-ra’ she heard, ‘ta-ra’
and she saw them all marching proud and then
the whistle blew. She heard their panting fear
running until beyond the trenches her boy
anonymous, wedded with wire, unblinking
across a conscripted land. With poppy-red
lips she kissed her soldier boy and bedded
the mud with memories, gunsmoke clouds
hurried away.

Phil Wood

Dowd’s Wharf

The mud’s a grey unhealthy skin
where the neap tide lingers. This Usk
is never clean, but its mud gleams
as if the stars have found their nest
along with trolleys and rusted drums.
This river wharf is colder than home.

He calls it kedging, turning the ship
around. It’s brimming with scab coal.
He says there is a pretty Usk
frothing with healthy trout. There’s mud
in Birmingham, but not like this.
Where’s the sea of tranquillity? I ask.

He shrugs.
He has mud hands like mine.

================================

Pneumoconiosis

A mistle thrush pecking a stone
that is bone white. The river’s drought
a blistered thirst that mirrors mine.

The Welsh dresser displays the dust
of Portmeirion plates and there’s Gran
cutting a slab of marble cake.

The Oakdale mine is hacking black lungs
to rags. All hear that rasp and know,
but still the kettle steams for tea.

Grandad, whiskered, mouthing air
as if a fish with pulsing gills.
I want to share my slice of cake.

Phil Wood

Accidents Happen At Sainsbury’s

From this joy of rain
the melch of leaves oozes
a mushroom soup between my toes.

I thumbs up.

You can’t sit
‘less you move your foot.

The tribe of corvus croak their prayer
and I unfold my eyes across the tarmac
to where a roadkill trifle waits.

I thumbs up.

Would you like fil tered cof
fee
or a capp u cino?

A Merveille du Jour blends to lichen skin.
Pools of vermilion spaghetti nest
beneath the Quercus and I want to pee.

You’d prefer soup?

I thumbs up.

Street Theatre

The Slav gravitates to a corner
beside the bins, looking up at passers-by
and mouthing crumbs of memory.
A pantomime fish poisoned by Cardiff air.

The glare from McDonald’s gathers coins
and fools into the mime, and though
time drifts like dandelion seeds
into mud pools, I play the Samaritan.

Kate Sharpley

Caged days without charge

in a cell stunk out

by the sweat of the coppers

as they pummelled me

with fists and truncheons

until the mirror view was a horror show

yet, the sergeant grinned

there’d be more of the same

if he saw my ‘ugly anarchist face’

on the streets again.

For I was expected to be agreeable in grief

and stood proud before Queen Mary

as she doled out medals

for my dead father, brother and lover

who were expected to forever

be ‘chirpy Tommies’ cheerily

dying as bullet-full tangles

mangled on miles of barbed wire

with thumbs up and smiles

for King George who’s busily

anglicising his German titles.

So I flung the medals back at the

waxwork face of Her Majesty crying:

“If you think so much of them, you keep them”

But England entrenched in worshipping

royalty gasped: “outrage!”

for the blood trickling

down the Queen’s cheek

was thought a more shocking loss

than the blood of the dead

fathers, brothers and lovers

drowning the fields of Europe.

Michael Wyndham

The Great British Ritual

Sir Ranulph Fiennes jogging solo

to the North Pole, yet forever

unflappable in the fight

against brutal frostbite; for

he’ll fretsaw necrotic fingers

and soldier on to his goal. As

schooled in salad days at Eton

or in the Royal Scots Greys

or when Bren-gunning Omani

‘Commies’ for the Sultan’s medal.

O Sir Ranulph! you were installed

by glory to Britain’s hierarchy as

the saintly icon for the ritual of

rigid adherence to futile endurance.

An inspiration for the nation’s heroes:

for here comes ‘Bear’ Grylls festooned

with the Scout logo and trumpeting

Baden-Powell’s motto for foiling

the immorality of the idle. For he’s

prepared to rebuff smashed vertebrae

and being strapped to a backpack

of a cannonball; for he’ll conquer

Everest in record summit and

be welcomed home by a TV deal

and a seat at the table with the royals.

Julie Whitby

Rotting Fabrics

Menacing green apples,

heartless skin of lover

smooth as lychees, unperturbed:

tinned. Wayward images that

wander. Will not form a

purple sea: crash their symbols,

froth and foam restore me,

hurl a stormy wonder –

no red lace petticoat

lies empty. They’re nibbling at

my verse. Menacing, sour apples,

tea-bags, coffee-skins of lovers; matt.

Lights

Ugly orange neon

cranes its neck forwards like

some stout, middle-aged hag

hunting for that bargain

in a dismal church hall.

Or an unwanted girl

at a dance: the dance of the street

where all other eyes flash

that quick serach,

knowledge of desire.

Girl, hag, neon, street:

all meet in me, each instant.

Holy Rose

Snow Rose of Macedon

Rose of the morning,

Rise from your radiant bed.

Let the Rose Mass be said –

the white rose kicking heavenwards

as did that rare Teresa of Avila

who danced in ecstasy

before the altar.

‘Unveil white blossomer’ commands the sun.

‘Daylight becomes your candid nakedness’.

Now by the candle’s flame we see

the white retiring Rose en déshabille.

Her petals part, revealing what’s to come,

Bright as that birth star over Bethlehem.

Snow Rose of Macedon,

Rose of the evening.

An Oriental Eye

The oven has an oriental eye

which looks beyond its squat platitude –

dirt-encrusted – I never noticed that before.

and how far does this eye see?

Just to the cobwebs and the pipes?

Or beyond them, through the wall

that’s waiting for the builder’s paw,

and over the gulls who always king and queen it

on the roofs that hedge in our longings,

even to the dream-encircling sea?

So does it stare compulsively out,

out of its narrow window, as I am prone to do?

Since only then may its dingy fate

dissipate,

and a sky glamorous, spinning with clouds who

could be anything,

anyone, and are free,

enter in

Cherchez le prince en ciel

Did you play with those magical cards as a child?

For what we don’t receive be thankful:

the oven has no right of reply.

Ben Willems

IN AREA C
Custodians enclose, confinement is commonplace

Ceilings of concrete, zinc, canvas and cave
Country of origin crumpled on cellophane
Compulsion scrubs up cleaner than change

Consider three complexions of creation –

Construction; Coercion; Cultures of childbirth.

Cramped between continents, clichés are chariots
Cain cripples Abel, cousins, compatriots
Cosy as cameras clinical catalyst,
Carving the census, Caesarean checklist,
Clamp down on chemistry’s chance companion,
Crows in the canopy circling carrion

IN AREA C

Conquest came; saw; cloned condominiums

Crowning hill-scalps like off-world colonies
Claimed descendants resurrecting centimetres
Customised maps, compressed chronology
Cable and calculus speech miraculous
“Choose place of birth in place of extinction!”

Cleverest thing it can clot cognizance
Certainties branch like advice from a croupier –
Cryptic injunctions stubborn oracular;
Clue’s in the creep to the thermonuclear

IN AREA C

Conscripted defences. Chicanery, legislative

Clauses. Security, of course. Conservation.

“Complainants: refer to the contract – Terms and
Conditions apply. Terms: you can have your cake
Conditions: we eat it – until further notice.

Call witness C. I beseech you stick to the facts.

Cry wolf with extreme care. Extreme care.
Cause of injury, we know from previous cases
Could be self-inflicted. C, did you ever suspect
Cracks in the victim of a suicidal nature?”

IN AREA C

Character building curriculum of buck stop

Classifies peace with pacification. Cue:
“Can of worms” on every fractious occasion;
“Coat of arms” – seductive, necessary – now
“Come to terms” more the scrupulous witch-finder

IN AREA C

Cusp of an epoch; twitch in the cosmos’s
Curtain of centuries, scenes to challenge
Captive, comatose, prick up curious; scare the
Crap out of lock stock hierarchies, are you sitting
Comfortably? Wretchedly? In your fortification?

IN AREA C

Consciousness coils and recurs incognito

Clearing its throat of a stuck fait accompli.
Cools off. When the brain cells are too over-
Crowded, choked with culprits getting off scot-free,
Corrosively racked, screw-balled deciphering
Charades of control. Eases back. Draws deep
deeper
Centres: in the heartbeat of beginning. This
Can’t be undone. Only cleaved on the surface.
Cut from its bedrock. Siphoned away, inch by
Cubic inch. Only clawed out mechanically
Crushed under falling masonry, suffocated when
Crucial to archaeological research. Buckled
Concentrically, empirically rubbished; only

Carried through the wreckage, a voice inescapable

IN AREA C

Countdown corridors echo diplomat chit-chat

Cash crop prospects, tectonic fundamentals, as we
Cross now to our conflict zone censor and discuss in
Clipped vocabulary: How beyond reproach is a blue chip
Client? How advanced is the carbuncle of theocracy?

But Woe Unto You Who Are Rich

The words of the prophet speak forth plain enough—

Their meaning we all understand.

Submitting to God is the part that is tough—

We’re stubborn and flout His command.

We add house to house and we join field to field

Until we’re alone in the land.

Injustice and bloodshed—the wild grapes we yield—

Bring judgment: Our wall will not stand.

Our churches are filled now with smug, greedy people

Who sin in the face of God’s grace.

A cross rises up from the top of each steeple.

The symbol we might well replace:

We’re called out to challenge our base human race,

But taking a businesslike view,

We’d have steeple needles with ample eye space

For souls of the rich to pass through.

D.H. Wheatley

Desecration (empty pages)

all these empty pages

collated and solid in hope

worthy inked words would

be dug into them

tattooed forever

with a meaning and purpose

I bought you because I need you

you will be my canvas

in which great ideas will be documented

you came to me lined

with parameters

but I scribbled and tore at your methodical appearance

I ripped you away from your brethren

you are mine

you will always be mine

no one will ever see you again

after I am done with you

I will lock you up like a dirty secret

in desk draws with soulless unpaid bills

and sordid sex mag posters

this is where love letters and personals

have gone in pure

and if ever released

have become a tainted piece of me

trivial

withdrawn of any humanity

that is because

it is just a piece of paper

Jane Shay Wald

EN ROUTE TO BUENOS AIRES

We’re one row back from first class seating

I smell the food others are eating

It strikes me as a metaphor

Dividing line. The rich. The poor.

I’m rarely on the struggling side

Does this tar me with a false pride?

As our country loses wealth

It’s everybody for himself

The poor are made to walk the plank

The rich are running to the bank

The Christians think they own this place

America, where my white face

Protects me with a life of ease

While Christians fall upon their knees

To curse god for our president

Whose birth they claim’s not resident

RECOLETA CEMETERY, BUENOS AIRES

A cemetery in the middle

Of the city, big and little

Crypts above-ground, on their roofs

Angels drive out spirit hooves

Of Satan while the lowest carving

Cost the bread of hundreds starving

Cherubs fly through man made towers

God and man, uneasy powers

Wealth divides in our land too

The word of god and Jesus who

Our politicians preach the Word

Totemic in their pagan herd

As third worlds master internet

Our nation sinks, pressed by our debt

And as our GDP declines

The GOP smugly opines

That Christian values will create

A faith-based nation born of hate

Above each bed a wooden cross

With Jesus comes our freedom’s loss

Abi Wyatt

Mother Hubbard’s Lament

The old ways are dying out

and we, I fear, must fade with them.

Nobody now makes homemade pie

so the blackbirds sing and fly free.

All the wells have run dry

and the world grows dim

since the candle-maker’s

passed into receivership;

and, though the jolly pie-man

peddles well his wares,

at the fairground no one buys.

Now the pipes have fallen still

and the fiddlers have ceased;

all the tarts – either burned or long stolen.

For want of more honey,

the pale Queen weeps

and the Grand Duke numbers his dead.

While the pussycat dines

on the startled owl,

Big George and Little Willie are indicted;

and, in the counting house,

as the numbers stack up,

the old King puts a pistol to his head.

Petra Whiteley

Ars Gratia Artis

I. ars est celare artem

This word that I will not say cuts through my fingers,
through my hand. Only through this cut can flesh be felt.
The following of the rip will not lead to belong, just to find
a question, not an answer. Never an answer, words not to be.

II. caret initio et fine

Jesters in the rain dance on the spikes, the noose of words
around their veiny red necks, butcher’s hooks, unattended,
regardless
they will nest that rope up there, keenly, crying ‘faster!’.
Air for the fish.

III. de fide et officio iudicis non recipitur quaestio

The priest has sharp teeth, the rain hits the glass. Every
thing is yours.
Confess the f(l)ame[s], set your[self]house on cold fire.
In those flames you can be God of every[day]One. The Rising
of Poe-T, victorious, with mouthful of corpses. Affix-nose-coccyx,
entrance, this fuck chosen. Cli(que)ng fantasy, hands-as-one
clapping oratorium.

IV. acta est fabula

Now, we must talk of anaesthesia of sex, of clocks tender rotating
quietly, churning the ashes. The masks of criminals worn, eyes
unlying. Burning to beginning. Mid-air ladder perspective.
We must talk about the artifacts of departures of waves, the powder
of sky, the lines of stars, the rush of big bang. Cuts covered, the warmth
of blood, the apparition of life. Blasting the white sheet,
cover my face. Cover it tight and cover it now.

Quiet! We want to look into our souls! (Thomas Mann)
———————–

Rainsticking

I kept walking from the town, the place
of wind and restless mouth; those were empty pockets
of breath and their words nothing but hell from a shotgun.

The clever(mad)ness of men
tongue-full-wagging, throw-scream throwing.

I was thinking things to be silent about.

I was thinking about thick water
and breath with no harm.

Colours with which dreams give swing
to fools flashing bright gowns and lonely skulls, well,
I’m done with that now.
I was thinking of where to whisper, where to make its cold grave.

Under the leaves,
under the water…

Still, there is no rain; there are no more deserted shadows
to push the steps on the gravel to some distance anymore.

I want to scratch a song, a piano in a dark room will do.
A song in which to be silent about everything that should
be and should have been said to a stranger at the bar,
where truth stares at you when you finish that drink,
and that idiot dream with its violet sky mocking,
that rainstick sound in the empty skull left behind.
There in the bar where strangers know you better
than your God knows you, whom you know
better than your mother.

Acres of Solitude

No one in the story. Does there have to be someone, anyone? Or can it be, just A bar with a bass crackling from shaded corner above the red, worn musty carpet. Must someone listen to it? Can it just linger and be? A song that’s never left. A smell that rings in the sleep. A peculiar light, a renegade witness.

Does it have to be like tea, squeezed animals swirling and sugar strained from red seas, somewhere within? Beating ant-hems of nations merrily, merrily. Nations, like old, loose pidgeons, darkeningly drunk, excreating busy-ness.

And those who are given to the other side of the story so reluctantly, so unwillingly, are moving so very, so very slowly. They are nobodies like you-me-us. It takes infinite move–ment of snooker balls to make the clock go and that, that sad, sad song to find its last note. A history of miles spent breathing flying words and bodies, left behind like they were already dead when they were just belling, contemplating the planes that weren’t moving. Destinations undeparted. Firestealers in amnesia, in ennui film sweat, sea acres of solitude.

A cut between a place and a mist that clings to walls. In the dark it looks prettier. The lonely. In the clothes on the floor, there is some hope growing within them. It is a rising steam, a mirage. Defeat of the day clothes…it came with birthing blood and residues of struggles, the expulsion tax. A tide, a glow. Now this story is not so great, so it opens a can of dreams.

Washed out in the rain, that cold, tired rain spinning in the drain.

Christian Ward

Rebirth In The Age Of ID Cards

I have been condensed,

boiled down to less

than zero, shoved through

tubes, dropped down

onto petri dishes fed

to machines with hungry

mouths. Woke in a garden

where the trees are made

of 1’s and 0’s, apples,

from pissed-on manifestos.

I walk, think, wank, shit

and sleep. I hear scratching

when I dream, find new

objects in the morning:

credit cards and passports

with a name I don’t recognise.

Sometimes I like to dance:

my hands will leap up

and my body will fly through

the air. Perhaps I will soar,

see the hands that mould,

that give me inoffensive

scenery instead of life,

bloody and raw like hands

cut with smashed glass.

————–

Anthem for Obedient Youth

With no offence to the obedient

youth, I would like to rip off

their generic faces and turn the

knobs of an etch-a-sketch

to produce some variety that will

throb in the electric undercurrent

of our society. How I would love

to pull off their hooped earrings,

hoodies, tracksuits, fashionable

crops, retro glasses and everything

Hoxton-esque. How I would love

to strip them bare and let them

redesign every inch of their pathetic

selves. And burn, burn the media

priests that dominate the theatres

of their heads with pointless shit

and spoonfeeds them a heroin

of gossip and noise to ensure

subservience. Then I would let them

walk through the streets and watch

them tear it down, tear it all fucking

down.

And it will be beautiful,

oh so fucking beautiful, my friends.

——————

The Conservative Poets

Their words are hollow,

trite. Snatched from Marie Claire,

Cosmopolitan. Who gives

a fuck about whether an avocado

gets you fat, or a man changing the oil

in your car. Held up to the light,

their words are blank; unlike the ones

labelled ‘other’ or ‘underground’.

Theirs is like the lump found on an x-ray:

hungry, raw, growing.

Daniel Wilcox

Shell Casings

“Love and forgive”—

Out-worded mouthings,

Spoken platitudes of artifice,

Only discarded words—

Empty shell casings;

Now

More verbs eject from the barrel

Of the battering rifle

As steeled bullets

Fell god’s enemies who return

The religious favor;

Yes

Turn the other teeth,

In the snarl of the Sermon

On the Mounted gun,

Revenge by silencer,

But even the scorched stones

Cry out against

The barrel of the juster

Jest of the god-blessed—

Ritual fount of all

Red-tided history.

Daniel Wilcox

The Dog’s Bite

The Tali-banned dog fighting

But America permits the dog-bite

Partying of religious Afghans

In the fanged gamble, their moneyed

Heroin poppies up, jagged blooms

Clawing the world market

Leech flowers blossoming deep, needle

In ‘Vein’ to others circusing the world round engulfed,

And the propped legislature votes

The blooded zenith

To execute apostates,

Ah well so sick

And punish blued wives who left

Hell! For several thousand bills, fighters

Can get out of jail free cards

So much jawing teeth

Dogging our worn flag-budded tail.

Gwilym Williams

On the Feldherrenhalle Steps

God, you are my refuge into eternity.

Sophie Scholl – last words (attrib.)

The munkle and rattle of an early Munich tram

lurches me suddenly

back

to sombre meditations.

Awake! from dreaming in your comfortable inner space

you brother of dragons

you companion to owls.

Hesse and Bukowski explored their themes:

living (or existing) in the present

is one.

In the practical world empathy may aid digestion

when dining with your enemy.

Rationality will not save you.

Something important had to be done

here

apart from maximising efficiency.

I went and got the data.

Re-examined the reasoning.

Un-positioned the present.

You can never say never

and you can never change

human nature.

One of them told me it was all a Boys Own adventure

dreamed up at the Hofbrauhaus

when they tanked-up on Teutonic philosophy

fuelled by an addiction

to frothy beer, potato stew

and Wagner.

A kind of cosy camaraderie around long tables.

And then handily placed

that brace of proud, crowd-facing lions

mounted atop the steps

waiting for the up-and-coming orator.

Glorious inspiration hung with bollocks

the size of grapefruits.

They should fall off according to Newton.

To Hell! with the all-seeing eye of the agnostic.

I turn and see the girl holding the white rose

standing in a slow dolorous light

frozen vacancy in her eyes.

Is that the rumble of thunder?

Strange amphigory of circumstance!

Exiguous memory:

We will not be silenced.

We are your conscience!

Subversion to the proselyte!

God, you are my refuge into eternity!

Gwilym Williams

Attending a Poetry Reading

Nobody understood it really

understood what it was

really all about

although some of us had heard it

once or twice before

and one of us

had even read it several times

but still

nobody understood it

and when I pressed her

about it

pinned her

to the bar

with a kind of pathetic poetic gaze

she held forth

that it was all a stream

of consciousness

and that I should have known

that

what went unsaid

was meant

and was indeed

than implied –

since

you’re something of a poet

too

or so I’ve heard

she said

Richard Wink

Kizza Me

Bare feet

warm black sand

vile delirium tremens

The aubade burns

streets disproved.

A plain Jane saunters

mystery

engulfed in Bermuda smog

Poker

Unable to talk because sunlight

doesn’t operate underneath his

refulgent nostrils.

The Prince, a manipulator who

himself was a burden to the house

that raised him

picking up perplexed fairies

who showed a bit of leg

before they sniffed stardust

though you couldn’t see the

magic until you parked your

wallet and opened your

misshapen ardor.

She sensed opportunity, you

were obedient. She

could recreate something

fanciful on the budget

of a shoe string

During the Recession

The empty guitar case collects coins

its quarter to noon

and there is no marble sky.

Above the bust of a queen

swings on a sign.

A dog on some string

snarls

near the harmonica bearing man

who got so drunk last night,

his tongue is scarred by teeth marks.

Seizure

Father, son and preacher

blazing clicks of high heels

on the pavement

met with fiery eyes

sordid and graceless.

Ungrateful for the loose change

misery justified.

Doog Wood

from Old Men Forget

Through one eye. Lafeyette lays quietly.

He does not nail it in place but the end

of th’longer paddle

is tapered and rounded to fit

the bottom of the pot ‘I said,’ exactly

the same shape.

The room is full of smoke, faint afternoons

‘damn, leave me be,’ both handles are

flat, soft

made with’at drawing knife so the pine

won’t dig, ‘dammit,’ when coming

into a curve.

There is a cold beating, Lafeyette, hard

glistens at the pit gazing I take

water, warm

from the bucket & pull off my clothes

& lay along the cool counterpanes

beneath the shed.

Then I went by slowly, and round behind

the barn, as I followed, she sat

deeper & graver

looking-up at lathing set a-pitch

and the window, open,

sixteen or eighteen inches hewn.

She would not think the full-moon full

unless she saw it in the water

and ‘only after

was it’ chinking on the back

like a ‘red spider’ falling

on each chestnut stall.

We’re on the outside of outside, fenced

from the garden to the hills

like the bells –

Ringing. Ring. Ring.

feeding now,

walking no regular rhythm.

The second again: by now it was full

whispering, chortling, crowing whippoorwill

between iron

beds & lamp unlit & still I face another

seam, withered, and lay through two half-inches

behind my head.

Across the floor, towards what hangs

from a nail, he catches himself up, no longer

any quiet, clean

linen – but th’poor shuffling now beneath

soaked cloth where he has found it and

begins again.

The bed planks creak, and I can make her

bare feet slow, not shuffling, not

stifled, her

voice not whispering, ‘git awn t’sleep,’ and

the twisting and grumbling sound

which will not grow.

107

Later on, in the kitchen, John sliced

not honest cornbread, not even

biscuit, ‘I hain’t

heard him say nothing,’ and we sat

in two chairs, with my back

against the wall.

‘I thought you said,’ it was as though

she walked straight through the sound

her feet, naked

leaving the voice ‘quiet.’ He took

another plate down, his hands

busy again.

‘It was the boy,’ I watched him go

over to th’sink and prepare

to wash, ‘that’s

what I’m talking about,’ her long

fingers and I remember Geneva, how

‘here, I’m trying to explain.’

115

After we packed the mule & positioned

the felled old things, brought the lace

turning

in that quiet, constant scene, leaning this

way about the smooth, thin body

through the door –

‘What good,’ we continued, with used calico

pantalettes, smooth prim braids

and steps

down with the smell rising like

music – only, ‘stillborn,’ and complete

only, ‘that’s a fact.’

‘Now you,’ Lafeyette said something, ‘quit that

now,’ & we passed the pasture gate –

‘listen,

are you,’ through John’s eyes, & it looks

back at me, fading, at that broken angle, that

cat’s eyes do.

Michael Wyndham

Harry’s Firm

The shot glass hammers the bar –

Our court all-rises for Harry

to determine the list of in or out of favour

Billy ran but is considered a lad; a query

as to Harry’s health, now John tops the chart

of faces we are to banish

But Mickey is advancing hierarchy

he’s clowning & tickling his way to a seat

at the helm. He feels the squeeze

of Harry’s arm-swell pilfering flair

from the rank and file –

“Mickey, you’re just like I was at your age”

Petra Whiteley

The Hours

Hours … the falling mirror,

It is so cold now, the pale silver

sign I’ve swallowed and smothered

within. There is only stillness

of jet-black untongued utterances.

Aloof incantations, slaughterhouse

Requiem. It’s close – glitter in the omens!

My hands are outstretched. I’m flesh-

Folded in your faith. Consuming me. You?

I grip your face, feline and distant,

Waiting; unfaced. Effaced in blackness;

Vision penetrated. Hours … grow silences,

Birthing images of you. My fear is you.

I am. Murmurs in the last, broken sentence

You’ve breathed out beasts of better times.

Hours – I long to touch. They turn and itch,

my pulse with locked wings. Nothings. It’s

you who burns me through. I rise and rise,

watching you, watching me. Turn away.

Pull.

Communion Switch

You’ve brought a friend home, shy smiling.

He keeps saying hello, keeps on switching

the lights on and off; won’t eat the red fish

given, his host’s eyes – glimmering, he looks

away, searches through old Christmas boxes

for a shelter, malachite fluid-filled. Drained.

Passersby, pass. Blessed donations,

transfusions of the small copper tinklings.

Lung waste. It’s fun to pretend to wear shell

thorns, one hand nailed, one eye watching

for spectators. Shouting slogans, take

your pale mannequins – strategically placed

mystical signs. War and peace, communion beat –

drum and blaze, getting drunk, getting stoned.

Revolutionary annotator crushed under, sniffs glue

from emaciated hands, shredding the dead, gravel

lines blasting the ashes, children in junk factories.

Fainting formaldehyde funk flower assembly. Father

and mother on the coffin-watch. Silent. Angel spells honey,

s-w-e-e-t. Dirty words in the gun. Do nothing, do fuck all.

Smile, pretty. Less dangerous to be so. Rage and loud noise.

Sucking on oil, on your laptop. Yes, it’s them. Not us.

Buttons, we pressed. The veils of the dead flap in the wind.

Their hands so ghostly outstretched for mockery of fuzzy

rats. Shaved heads, prayer beads, emptied minds, nirvana.

Ink numbers, laser-read, sold two for nothing at all. A penny.

Bargain. Death sells, smells just like you. Say no hello.

It’s goodbye. Lights out. No sense. Switch it. Flood’s behind.

Eyes in the ground

The moon with the broken spine

of its sleepless hare lashes out

fast and hard, its liquefied light

screams at me –

the black blood putrefied silence,

bed spilt, last breath peeled naked.

Gliding blue with no sound

(no symphony, no sadness)

Rebirthed,

transformed.

Is it innocent?

Is it free?

pricks, its dry

sticks sink in, flesh stings,

exposed

in the cold. It digs a hole

deep within skull, takes

the surrendered bones

of departed warrior line,

tied tight skin on wheels

its fuel – annihilation,

colour red. Its pulse. Ablaze

in open jaws.

Eyes in the ground, watching

multiple lips flickering sparks,

the lies. Do not scatter them

around these silvery flesh things.

The Blackout

The furniture has never been moved,
the clock burnt faults within.

In this blackout
someone will forgive you
(some of) your flesh.

The Chosen
autochthonous bond –
the placenta of the annihilation
cut lengthwise, drowning reality. (?)

Repeat
the wide arch of spit
whilst sketching your pomp
till you feel inside.

II.

Choose equilibrium
of agony relapsed
during the protracted years
of appropriation
of certain crepuscule,

always empty and tight-drawn
around the skull.

Breathe yourself in.

I hear
the sermons
are cataclysm loud.

III.

The crack opens the rehearsal
of this unspeakable ruin,
the stock-exchanged pain –
the rape of others

untalked in speeches on scaffoldings,
the streets incontestably bright-dressed
in elation of this long, long march.

What is it in you? – the oscillation
of the delusion and affectation
of barren mumbles, the clung of cheers –
the carnival of habitual cannibal in you.

IV.

The paradigm
shall (not?) pass the hungry – the resurrected
hounds, splayed bloodily across the inverted
amulet of crossed wrists.

In stillness there is the spatial decay
the ornamental purpose of absorption.

The filter and lament of Self behind
the uneven walls of the depressed
house-fronts. The trenches.

So fasten the seatbelt
of the ending – the perfidy
on the sludge of your tongue,
unrestrained and oozing fractions,
institutionalised stick up –
the natural selection
of bête noire. The raptorial expression
engraved onto the marble faces.

It is merely the result of living quiet.

Lee Whensley

Capitalism

Capitalism fails when there’s nothing left to take,

When everything we lived for is discovered to be fake –

Was everything we killed for just a big mistake?

It domineers to commandeer – its property at stake

Creating a dependence on the products that it makes –

Capitalism fails when there’s nothing left to take

It hums a tune to placate you as you work for its gain

Then in hegemonic harmony it buys out local trade –

Was everything we killed for just a big mistake?

Homogenised and standardised- free thought down the spout

As idolatry fills TV screens of hedonists devout –

Capitalism fails when there’s nothing left to take.

A guise of stark normality that crumbles when it’s opened

Free will contained by wanton gain, but when the system’s broken,

Was everything we killed for just a big mistake?

Experience of convenience and lying through clenched teeth

The pretty packaged products that hide the shit beneath,

Capitalism fails when there’s nothing left to take

When everything we lived for is discovered to be fake.

Daniel Wilcox

a few blasphemies

Little boys and fat men

Fall pell-mell from the sky

Toadstooling shapes

For the earth scorched,

But we Americans assure

Such weapons are

God’s droppings to ‘u.s.’

But hell to pay for Iran;

We’re waterboarding but

The Persians are blazed to blame;

Orwell’s Blaired novel doubling

Comes to mind,

The true ‘blastphemy.’

The Winged Ones

Overlooking the City of the Winged Ones

At blooded sunset distant in the haze

He stood on the skyscraping angled roof

And lowered the stars and stripes of the clawed eagle

Watching its stretched flapping shadow

Flit about the darkening roof out to the edge

A bat on the prey over the slate gray world

Not the dove of the olive branch he so imagines.

Black Light

My eyes pressed and I slipped

in under her fleece cloth

in the desire of my mind.

Her eyes glowed iridescent

in the blackness of herself

in the darkness of the house.

She spoke a southern accent

from carved ebony lips

from a northern white city.

I spoke with unprejudiced hint

from separate loneliness

from a dusky existence.

I wished to be able to protect

against the loss of innocence

against our blotted culture.

She was black light intent

against the vulgar glare of war

against the shadowy white.

Concerning this 500th Anniversary

Of John Calvin

And his Tongues of Fire

Not the tongues of Acts

Those of mercied news,

But Gehenna’d tongs

Of Calvin and Geneva

Firing the green wood,

So hard to blaze

Down to Hades,

Slowly, more the skin’s scorch,

Long sought end of Servetus,

Head drenched in sulfur.

And our god fell,

One of the casualties

Like the reprobate infants

Outside of Geneva,

With the sudden rise

Of a myriad of bats

Out of a dark theological pit,

The poisoned t.u. l.i.p.s kiss

In that Judas of nights,

A tongue-lashing

From eternity past when

The primordially hidden,

Instituted decrees

Blazed through Europe

With ‘help’ from Rome

And millions of saints

Slew for Jesus’ sake.

Our doubts abyss up

Like doctrinal vampires,

Hovering over a hellish cake

And the lowly clay pots

Fitted for destruction;

We drink the ‘vain’ dregs,

Not the loving grail

Of new wine at Cana.

But John wishes Michael

Had only been beheaded

Of his heresy of baptism.

What a shame…

1 Luke 23: 31 If men use the green wood like this…?

2 James 3:6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue–world of wickedness–is that one of our organs which soils our whole nature, and sets the whole course of our lives on fire, being itself set on fire by Gehenna.

3 Acts 2:3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire…

4 On Servetus “a crown of straw, doused in sulphur…The fire was lit. Green wood does not burn easily, does not roar up. It smokes and sputters, burning unevenly and slowly. And so Michael Servetus’ life was not extinguished quickly in a blazing wall of fire. Rather, he was slowly roasted, agonizingly conscious the whole time, the fire creeping upward inch by inch. The flames licked at him, the sulphur dripped into his eyes, not for minutes but for a full half hour. ‘Poor me, who cannot finish my life in this fire,’ the spectators heard him moan. At last, he screamed a final prayer to God, and then his ashes commingled with those of his book.”

Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World By Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone

Go The Way of Democracy

It is time to go

to the people

to the polls

the way of democracy

Time to make a mark

speak our say

There is a window opening out onto the world

and we can pass

if we want

if we choose

into a brave new day

Choices opening wide

Men debating their truths

within the illuminated window

Only men

half our people have lost their voice

without opening our mouths.

Let us go

the way of democracy

the way of Uncle Sam

because it works so well over there

God bless the sound bite

the chad

Mr. Personality God himself

Let us make free choices based

on the empty words of men

on the flickering of icons

in depthless windows

on backlit surfaces

on the skin of thought

More voices lost

whose surfaces are not the shade

of men framed in the open window.

So many going without a whimper

through doors and chimneys

behind the light

illuminating our world

Maybe the wick in midnight’s glass

draws us forward

to hear the whisper of the people

the way of us I am

to hell in a hand made basket

the way of the world

the way of democracy.

Ellipsis

Moon light flows stiff like iced rain

I am bathing in the clarity of the circular moon

but where does it flow too

where does the flow end and the story begin

assuming there is a story

Is it about the moon in her icy stiffness

Is it just words in the blood singing without benefit of tune

Are the words living or just from life cut

a little piece, a slice, a molecule

Is it misguided to search for too much meaning

in all this untidiness

Is it so wrong to seek a sense of life

in the meaning of words as they flow

haltingly from their clarity

its complete, complacent roundness

We think fit to translate the man

to banality, cutting him free for simplicity’s sake

but applaud without slightest irony the obtuse

empty complex of an emperor’s latest threads

Pull them through, along, thawed round and round

Where does it take you into

the maze where a fat moon shines brightly

bathing its own crystalline clearness full circle

like empty starlight in the channelled wake of a thought

thin and hollowed in the iced rain