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SELECTED POEMS BLACK PRINCESS...and more
by Anthony Steyning
These 'compositions' are constantly revised online. I cannot re-record videos every day, so please take the written words below as the most up-to-date version available. Also, speaking Spanish and French all day long for the last two decades hasn't improved my English reading skills. So that next time round perhaps I'll use an actor. Still, this will give you more than a flavour of the scope of my work. |
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Black Princess Slick, she slides As swan on ripple rides. Glib, she glides As bluebirds on airtide rise. Gawks, up she chalks As breeze above reeds stalks. Then talks, but balks As she by others walks. Crouches, still pouts As in that crowd, breathless, I run, I hide. Yet hunt she must, She of constant, moody flight, clinging, of hips swinging, tail zinging, a prowling river cat making me pray I'm not her prey, because of nights she won't forget
Waiting for Henry Most people spend their life waiting for him. I didn't until I was fifty, immediately following those early years of innocence. Innocence is dismissing, he never entering. But now it's: Is Henry coming, on his way? Where do I hide? For Henry's death and death's Henry, isn't he?
Sailing Power Plug Pete and Wet Jack Stel, back from rounding Cape Carnal Binge Took a breather on the deck of their Catamaran, basking, glowing, in the burning Also of the sun
Mother My mother likes blossom on a tree much better than apples, growing later, usurp, disturb, she says, like some of us steal Spring, spoil everything
Monday I waited for Monday as seldom I seem to wait forgetting how quickly black'n white days alternate, after someone stole soft Sunday's air with me going round in circles and sometimes in a square
Icarus Accused
It’s nice to be shameless. It comes in handy when finding oneself, formal as always, highly dressed before judge or committee set up to inquire about one’s ways. It gives one the opportunity to lie through distinguished teeth, faking how one cares, dodging truth brilliantly through vain brain nimble and memory for utility drilled To be looked upon as sincere when in reality one's a corrupt and pin-striped whore With such honourable voice, deep only at its shallowest, and, success justifying the means, not being real or authentic never having held one back. One's acquisitions, profits and gain furthermore, incidental only to one’s need for much esteem, seeing as at the end of the day the one for oneself is so profoundly thin Still, attacked, outrage and denial one's best friends. For skimming not outright stealing and self-reward not robbing, one convinced oneself long ago. And never mind if one leaves the disadvantaged scrambling in one’s wake, it’s not killing is it, as in tyranny and violent crime? Much obliged in other words, small murders not murders at all It’s nice to be shameless. It comes in handy when flying high and forging ahead But remember the sun and wings of wax And Icarus neither victim nor hero but greedy, and Ignoble fool!
Cloudburst Poor rain! Drops lowered into river into sea, wiping ooze off wings unseen, float to float upward unperceived, drift to drift back and hang Over barren folds and thirsting souls, ready to moisten and caress again, but Poor rain Paying with liquid loneliness
Her Face A rich and angular yet undulating field graced with two flowers, two eyes unfolding slowly each day, each moment lit by warmth from deep within Heat oft hidden, but never quite gone, nor dark, even when imperilled by fogs of doubts or fears Doubts if yesterday's hurt will come again; Fears only disappearing when kissed by my heart's fresh outcry Her face in sudden celebration after clouds swept 'way by this, love's tender thirst and dawn's new dew Offering liberation
Them What's them is all talk and marry well and travel far and talk some more and talk and talk and take and take and never give, especially a damn
She Sometimes I embrace her body Sometimes I embrace her mind And when I embrace them both it tends to be divine
Of Tomorrow Evening, lace of moments round my neck still beating from your interrupted embrace! Darkness, only awaiting the arrival of your next touch! Nearness, like a light incapable of conquest it seems, without inflicting Hurt all are known to hate! Morning, prelude to tomorrow and the final certainty that while embrace unwillingly sometimes, Darkness and careless pain also must abate!
Ever More A profile hewn from light and shadow under umbrella-rounded hair so fine, I tremble before my hand outstretched, awe nearly causing I withdraw, except now her eyes burst open and her mouth curls sweet and her teeth speak bright 'What are you doing? What are you thinking?' Irony! How is melodious, innocent breath to know through mouth divine it has to enthralled ear traversed, giving life twice, thrice..?
Moment I want to keep it! It is not dirt! She said, refusing my hasty kerchief, placing her hands protectively against the upper insides of her legs, wanting this part of her moist and warm and fertile a good spell longer, the other still shaking; weak, weaker slow spasms ebbing, way below layers of clothes in disarray, deep inside the dusk of my car, quickly speeding 'way. How utterly loving! I thought, touching her hand; but too stupid to slow down or stop that goddamn Chevrolet!
Impunity's Death There is every chance a body buried illicitly, meeting its end less than fortuitously, encountered the kind of justice it once dished out If not, there soon to be second loss: impunity's own demise bequeathing crime's hidden author death's infinitely more Just toss
A Funeral For Immortality (Subtitle: The Lodes of Time) There is no sweeter contingency Yet consider the promise of endlessness and finding all things good, become all hell So that the possibility of immortality's own death sneaking up, to this deception we should not over-react, cuddled as we were by her only when still in need of nurture Indeed, if immortality were a woman who had a certain way with us, holding herself out, making us go and go on, when otherwise and long ago we would have given up: yes, such is the power of suggestion and the degree to which our fears and at once the self-preservation behind our beliefs, do stimulate The terrible power of fantasy, as it is called For as it turns out her generosity always exactly mirrors our generosity towards ourselves Now one day such a lady surely deserves a warm-hearted elegy, seeing how before our very eyes she suddenly grew so very old, and cold. Or was it slowly, but nobody paid attention? The cause of death, since you ask, usually ignored in as formal an outpouring as an obituary, and futile bringing the matter up except perhaps for those themselves blindly moribund. And having loads of time coming up with a suitable epitaph, there rarely existing need for impatience or thrusts of other sorts For it is nearly impossible to write a well-reasoned prose poem on something that isn't quite real, something like a real enough obituary or elegy for immortality and the reason lady-embodiment serves us well. For in defense of things it must be given a try as life only valued as a constant 'raging against the dying of the light' so often leads to the de facto denial of one. Like the stating, as so many do, that wisdom is 'accepting life's limitations' and from there swiftly going on to suggest how terrific and infinite and un-'limitated' the next one is. Commencing the search for the holy grail of this immortality, even when there is not the faintest hope of finding it, the real, organic universe unable to function in this fashion. Or as a friend of mine expresses it, immortality having no future at all And which I only now begin to understand But let us return to the task of burying a lady: it is not easy celebrating someone who never was and could not be, someone comforting and fanciful, alive superbly in our desires, one we only recently and to our great shock learned no longer lives among us. Gone, defunct, dead and needing to be buried with great pomp, out of respect for what we perceived were her extraordinary accomplishments: dishing out limitless, beguiling reward as recompense for our own perceived victories and qualities. A spell-binding, an overly generous lady, deserving an elaborate grave, a solid grave, for she was uncommonly elusive and thought to be extremely tall, with all of us knowing her but none of us ever really seeing her, even though, incredibly, we would kill for her if we had to, chips down and seemingly in the service of some deep need With an elegy or obituary that could say a lot or not so much, because she meant a lot or not so much, depending on to whom one spoke. In fact there could be more than one of each, the irony that she knew so many and survived such a long, long time in the minds of most. Longer, and get this, than all her admirers, adherents and good friends put together. The Daily Telegraph probably celebrating her service to King and Country. The Times her estates. The Guardian her fellow man and Radio Four her forceful voice. And that is because we are all so very much inspired by anything or anyone confirming what we already stand for, making every attestation like it rich, because... in fact... our own Though strangely, dead or simply disappeared, she keeps on popping up, sighted by those who can't give up, wanting to have a fresh go at her. When the only thing the poor dear wanted was to be remembered, not be seduced again or in the other extreme driven to exhaustion. Or ridiculed by some, because that's the way we are: sometimes good, sometimes nasty, just don't push and as long as either way we bag redemption. But seriously and swiftly removing tongue from cheek, is it not the premise of promise of such another life, the one after the one we know to be so short, precarious and cruel, the sole element of change that possibly makes sense? For what is the point of extending life with one just as fraught with uncertainty? And therefore making the dreaming up of one that is neither, such a perfectly natural endeavour? Putting to good use the one faculty making us differ from all other living creatures: Need something you cannot have, thus badly want? Why, invent it, of course! Then buy it! And need itself then, so very facultative. And artificiality on the surface so very beneficiary. For it certainly seems to work in other parts of our existence, like matters economic: half the world lives decently by the fabrication of products that are useless or invisible. Goods and services based on fear and contingency. On mere impression and suggestion, with them crazy or smart enough to provide the stuff and us daft enough to buy it. Yes, along broad lines it works, just like the cold war. The economic catalyst without which we would all have been eating dirt and for decades fostering industry upon industry keeping us directly or indirectly in a job. Though nothing ever happened, no shots fired, only those empty, angry menaces and threats. And what did Yves Saint Laurent ever do for Joe Pizza? Sodomy and velvet hats? Just what everyman was pining for? Of course not, but let the poor designer be, you do get the point: he successfully employed thousands of us in hundreds of stores in a dozen countries, or more. But in the end, both Yves and the Cold War tired and went. Yet fatuous immortality, despite all funerals, ever so kept her allures For on a further level it seems self-evident that there can be no life without death. So why then eliminate death? It is like trying to steal the horizon: it cannot be done and to begin with does not make sense. But by insisting on doing so, by trampling on others in the act, by being blind to every breath-taking landscape on our way, what are we achieving, anyway? To a growing number of us the secret lying in staying away from this sort of thing, by overcoming existential fears and silly ambition. Not craving immortality and reward the answer, ignoring that innate vulnerability to incentives of the kind. For it may be that in this ignoring and the human dignity it engenders lies the only timelessness that matters. Additionally and as a by-product, a delightful element of discovery left to our children, a stretch of road truly their own, nothing handed down or for much longer. The case before. Yes, not having their existence cut and dried after the ignoring... no longer ignored Is this not the very least we can do, bequeathing them life's magnificent sense of adventure, the one that we are busy claiming on the late side? Therefore, besides her obituary, the funeral for immortality, our lovely but somewhat sly and once ancient lady should be an extremely joyous and even repetitive one. Itself an unending New Orleans jazz funeral with laughter and dance flowing through the streets of five continents. Listen! Listen to the sway of that music, slow drums rolling, brash brass and soft reeds blowing, all feet moving, all man's skins aglow What a way to live as live we must, within thin lodes of time the party far from over (conceived just prior to FairyTales, the essay)
Paris Streets Pas de Deux says one affiche Pas de Chiens another Pas du Tout say I
Quebec en Trois Saisons O, glorious autumn of red, burnt falling crowns What more can one ask for but to lie among Cree and Gallic tongue quivering below eloquent winds, wings, and black tender tree trunks Just as long and later on, shielded from frost, this to new birth brings us Another shared exhilaration another unanguished confrontation with the gods: ourselves; another Spring
Inspiration Through desperate imagination The breeze of her, across the ocean, in this hotelroom, washing my hair, writing it dry, found my pen and so this sudden peace on paper
About Richard He drank first to luxuriate in, then to hold off life, followed by shoving the whole show up his arse, deciding dying greater than crying, apparently
On Anger But also about rivalry. And I do say while often horrendously legitimate, flaunting anger a tragedy especially if entered into culture as a social commodity, like the handshake, say For young men having nothing but a worn set of running shoes, a stained old polo shirt and a pair of jeans, no job, no education, no knowledge, no expectation, no girl-friend, no car, no place their own, anger more than sentiment It the only possession, the only weapon with which to duel, and having more of it the way to best even more lowly pals Yes, man the competitor, also when he has nothing, like who's first getting to the square or corner hangout, and once there who puts in the most useless hours, bluffs or fantasizes more, and above all Who hates the most, there seeking and getting attention! Though besides all this, what to do with oneself, how to keep busy every day, every week, month after month, year in year out Anger, hate become phantom victory, become useless dignity
Gloves Off The proctologist and the gynecologist had lunch, he thought that special scent of hers beguiling, she that his could be better and, only a hunch, having to do with his guy thing
Same to You As theory has it tree climbing mammals went on to rule the world due mainly to the thumb, the use of which forced the brain to make all kinds of small decisions Improving it, gradually guiding mankind to ever greater heights But since, it seems, become a waste: after two million years, humble thumb subjugated to the upturned middle finger And especially in your case making me wonder, if evolution all it's cracked up to be
Into The Lair Humans were propelled not by muscle, not by mind, but by thumb and clitoris Early on, One mechanically developing the brain, the Other, more delicate than cello or violin that most marvelous of anatomical instruments, instead of excruciation creating pleasure most intense Male orgasm functional, vulgar, mere secretion, but nature's genius providing women with ecstasy of the noblest and most intelligent kind They no longer resenting otherwise most unelegant penetration, so saving us, weak, few, unlikely to survive, from both early extinction and lonely desperation In nature and in private making them so altogether exceptional
Mindless Free. Euphoric. Cheering. In charge at last: ON TOP! After the misery not only belonging, but of the highest stratum, at long last not having to care for those below, forever more Relief! All smile! Doesn't it feel great, what's wrong with hate, resentment, terror and violence almost family, on our side? Except look everywhere, whatever achieved never ever lasting
Jack Not one but two tall beanstalks and the damp, hot tree house with the leafy entrance to try and climb into, thrusting head deep while in the breeze desire's all sway And where he curls up and rubs the floors, and walls, and ceiling without arms and hands, going up and down like a seesaw till the stalks cry out and in twilight go limp and he slides out and down all smile and wipes himself after soft, moist play
Aliens America in psychosis about Socialism (governing it) Latin-America about Gringos (exploiting it) Russia about the West (invading it) Africa about Europe (re-colonizing it) China about the Occident (belittling it) Japan about the Rest (not buying it) Hindus about Muslims (not bowing to them) Jews about Arabs (bombing them) Muslims about Christians (out-believing them) O, where the Extraterrestrials? (if not humbling, uniting us and why so much in need of them)
Eighth Floor Second No matter what you read No matter what they say and sounds like war World crisis is never Armageddon but a set of reversals in the Babylonian building of Finance whereby occasionally Basement becomes Penthouse, Third floor First, Eighth floor Second and the sad stupidity of rapacious architecture evident Once more
Deception Who the hell are you, they tell me at the Evening or Finance Post, having lost everything, pointing at institutional abandon, them asking if I don't know society cannot live without graduation, elevation, going on and on pretending it is never summit always bottom, me, who else, in charge of everything, including Wall Street, and why not, throw it all in, Route 66, Hawaii or even the West Coast? So, then, why publish the foregone? say editors and other doormen, keepers of gates, unlike with their favourite soap, pop and movie stars too reverent, not cornering, not tracking down absconding Ceos and Chairs who own not only judges but all yachts and all shares Asking these angels of extermination to explain themselves, by their lapels grabbing the lot, in their vowels kicking the rots, as the improbable objects of serious adoration already well INSIDE the show And things predictable in a strange sort of way, always right, they say But o Poor the system in need of might, though not nearly as poor as one minded with unreasoned respect and deference, in deceptive society rather than what does get written what goes not written, not published the bleeding difference
Mocha Man There is something tranquil, something stoical about mixed blood, the Half-Breed, Métis, Mulatto, Mestizo, Creole, those not remotely impure. Below their wings the peace of future lingering softly, as nature redefines itself Creating Seraphs of Dilution, of Negro, Caucasian or Oriental blood flowing into Obama, Woods, Dumas or Pushkin And a matter of physics incarnate, the confluence of molecules not through gravity, temperature, pressure, or volume, but hormones, in bedrooms and on the backseat of cars A Brazilian mosaic, though in bossa, in mambo Rio hate far from over and also awaiting the quiet arrival of the ultimate redeemer, modern, the total, Mocha Man Followed by the slow discovery that beneath his skin and all along Resides Everyman
Dizzy's Dead Glenn didn't, Bill, Jimi, John, Franz and Charlie didn't, in the end only Dizzy given the time to pay his bills For like Oceans, Music, besides delivering magnificence, also kills Seizing its most ardent practitioners with a pain and tension as if slow delirium ravages them The only assuaging the wrecking power of compulsion and perfection: more music more of it, ever ever more of it Creation by obsession consuming its children, devouring those known as Gould, Evans, Hendrickx Coltrane, Schubert, and young Parker Sucking them deeper and deeper into space, like a vortex not only getting louder but dense, darker
Lips A cliché dead wrong, not stiff upper but stiff lower lip, producing not a round but square mouth, one prevented from closing entirely by an upright toothpick Belonging to the antiseptic 'I'm very well, now be off!' Englishman, in an awesome display of careful class crap Expressing himself in ghastly speak, by ordinary mortals deemed a crass, not high but low blow, last gasp
Kafka Kalled the Government the Arrangement For me Life should be called the mysterious Arrangement, as it's much more difficult guessing who or what placed who, when, where, why and how Though as I'm kinda busy living, it doesn't really matter, just now
Cool it! Ever stood in front of an Aviary, barely lifting your arm, hundreds of birds in one swoosh taking flight, the flapping of alarmed wings moving the air violently, on either side of wire meshing nothing really happening? Yet when newspapers, television, journals and the radio raise voice, clear throat, spit phlegm, we also churn air, headless, fright laden, all at once going every nowhere
Why? Motion, mass, time, light, space, speed, electro-chemistry, gravity and fire Everything revealed, except the Origin of Purpose Leading to pathetic dreams and the irresistibility of ire
So What She doesn't know why she's here, this leaking raft of a woman, floating on currents she doesn't understand, drifting from coastline to coastline, never to land, not thrown a lifeline by anyone, except one man Himself floating not far She a little plain, a little plump He a little scared a little dumb Now paddling together, indifferent to weather, suddenly no more clinging Defiant
Caged Pedestrian I saw them in the street Man takes, Woman holds, but nobody says for her to walk two steps behind him, bent under weight of eyes checking on her from all sides, invisibly tied not to a passionate friend, but to some captor, kept her And telling us not enough about her, but about him Everything
Love To Slay Paraphrasing Sinatra, the problem now of course is that people are not horses, reduced to mere premise A space to walk into, a place to invade, a desire made habitable, not merely providing comfort, catering to every wish, where 'Jump, I say!' all poor bastards jump, but in the long run still not the contempt offering much fun; a domicile onwards even tiresome No, the joy of inspiring fear, the real edifice to be demolished, this addiction to instilling terror making demagogues and bullies seemingly rise before their own eyes The seeing of others not only crawl before them, but crawling 'way, no legs, no arms, almost gravity defying, like forcing water up tall walls Only for the slaying, this low anomaly, this dark perversity, Revolt!
Seduction With smallish organ some acquire a very large car With luxurious hair, and painted mouth even minor fortunes, and with help from a surgeon three, four extra husbands or so, astute calculation opening their society after closing some very posh bar But not Marilyn, singing diamonds are a girl's best friends a lark, buying them herself, through healthy appetite and a small excess of immodesty, hot the way some like it, making it entirely on her own Speaking softly, face tilted, eyes half slut, voix de fillette baisable, adorable lips simulating fellatio, showing each man she means well, driving him quite crazy, sometimes old Exquisite bird bagging hunter, Statesmen, fine French Crooners, Actors, Ballplayers, Playwrights, though not necessarily on the same day mopping up after them with other guys, on the road, where she comes and boldly goes Only ever dumping Norma-Jean, her pumps, her bobby sox, her lonely adolescence, all the rules forgot; the thing to do with caliber, a velvet smoke, and a couple of Tequila Cocktails, cold
Century XXI Can you speak a little faster, I have a short attention span! And louder, because I'm also going deaf from what I used to think was having fun! Hey, don't you see I have no time to be sincere, are you that dumb, not on the run, like everyone? Hurry, Driver, slowing down my nerves get shot! Tell me, M'am, how long will you ignore me, so I can go, not lose this spot? Waiter, can you speed it, the Vichyssoise is getting hot! No fooling, Paris through the roof, the Pope in Cuba, erosion in the air, got to fix my hair, but what if I'm late, my kid with AC/DC AD/HD, wonder why it is that he can't concentrate! At any rate For Christmas I want my own traffic lights and parking zone! Hi Mom, haven't seen you in a while! Was that her? Can't believe how old she got, head shaking as if her child is lost Or is it Parkinson?
Time And Again While on stage a pause is fire sometimes mirth, in a poem silence space, in space itself darkness not death but a flame dying to see birth
The Bed Some Cops to Thieves, all Minorities in Power, Officials to Builders, Bankers to Swindlers, Women to ill Suitors do it Saying 'Come up, but make no waves, you knaves, and for the sake of Christ upon a foul act, DON'T move the blanket'!
Splash The brain has two hemispheres forming one tiny planet, but the beginning of someone sometimes the end, like the woman with the exaggerated fish lips, asleep in an armchair in the lobby of a Montparnasse hotel, dreaming perhaps about returning to the Ocean, a fine catch for men no more
Ashes The Press comes up with good ones sometimes Like the extraordinary case of two eccentric rich girls, no arsenic, no lace Roaming the streets for rummies and fate, themselves derelict looking only to win the friendship of the lost Putting them up in cheap apartments, giving them one last address before once again dropping them off Having closed eighteen life insurance policies on the otherwise worthless existence of those homeless human cats, pretending to be their fiancees Paying the premiums diligently, making themselves beneficiaries, of course Then drugging and placing them on the cement or asphalt of the alleys they knew so well, for good measure bludgeoning the good bums before with their beat up Van running over them For eternity resting lying bleeding in dripping cardboard coffins, without pillows or on the lid Chrysanthemums! Both ladies seventy seven, and smart, their victims fifty and dumb For who needed the money Most?
A Megalomaniac's Song I felt like an army, the voice of my footsteps so powerful, the footsteps of my voice not merciful but masterful! Oh, how they listened, nobody suspecting the mess I created, over their heads, behind their backs, under their gaze With cold heart confirming warm trust, telling them only what they wished to hear My strength and loud conviction pointing at anything or anyone moving the wrong way, quickly assigning blame for all hunger, pain, humiliation If not by design certainly the fruit of an ignorance, even greater than theirs and than mine Plus those close, snakes and of reptile mind, mouth mute, tongue smelling, savouring domination, never taking their fangs and hypnotic stare very far from where exhorting I stood Yes, in this universe there exists no crime, and so no punishment though I did try stopping, stopping all guards, acolytes who wouldn't let me, fake fate thundering well down deliberate, firm, paved path Me, this late, afraid only of myself, of no longer being the strongest, the most ruthless, weakness pretending to strength and noise to conviction and hope to victory, soon descending into fury, disgust And, tiring, the sudden, the irresistible desire, not only to punish myself but to pull EVERYONE into some hell Where if I, all humanity must damned and well rot, rust!
Enigma Chance is dumb, Coincidence a force, But where do I fit in, Unless a horse?!
The Piercing A mocking smile, a bullet mind, lips curled, compassionate not arrogant, her ribbing playing itself out only through her eyes, brow raised slightly, pupils sizing up in silence and all its splendour, her voice not trespassing the human landscape her judgment long passed, crossed, conquered, left behind The knowing, the baring, leaving one feeling totally unattired, unprotected, defenceless, naked, laughable, but never, ever afraid!
Avowals Having to do with betrothal, Yes, Perhaps, Otherwise they stink! Never for compassion always for revenge vows should at the very minimum be Never to vow again!
Friends Yes It has started, One by one Losing them, Slipping through my fingers, Become nameless, Death or their betrayal taking them, By my recollection first noble, Then negligent But what is my name? Do I remember? Slithered away To them?
10 Cents There are those who fake interest to perfection, wallet tight, smoking expensive cigars, telling emaciated Sahel orphans to think positive, or knowing you're sinking, immaterially inquire 'bout your bad back, when as happy to let you drown, and save ten cents Sure it's Sahel out there, green once and more one day, but NOT for them Even their own having walked 'way, long ago!
Tradition Is dying for the past, not needless repetition?
Exit Compassion Solidarity's one thing, Complicity another, most not knowing the difference For though Kindness also kills, Cowardice and Suspicion doing it with much more passion!
Hope My false friend is back Turning up uninvited, throwing me a bone, pretending to lend hand Rage and disgust in momentary retreat as he drops in but quickly decamps Making me bite dust, eat sand again Even when I saw the bastard coming!
Drowning Like a Monarch butterfly lazily, languorously, unfolding wings in perfect sync In the slightest of breezes, the deepest of emotions, motions, except that these are her mesmerizing eyes In which I sink
South Mid West Turning a corner, the good ole boy said, suddenly there were flowers, flowers, thousands of them stretched out before me, as far as Arkansas...
No More I live under grass not sensing where the surface is, or that there is a surface, scuttling, scurrying back and forth without knowing where I'm going, discovering life at a level all my own For me this grass forest, every unevenness mountain, every raindrop flood, every footstep of something larger than me, war And I fight for this life without knowing it, understanding it Part of some foodchain, producing something even more magnificent than what I feel and see? Well, now, listen, I have no voice, but listen anyway! If you have anything to do with this, then Care for me! and Let me be! for I desire no more!
Gaols
Rage is getting invited urgently by the family
Because mother baked a cake and the neighbours and Jack and Syl are coming, and her son is home from somewhere and it’s her thirtieth wedding anniversary every six bleeding weeks
But I told her
I dance only once a year, at midnight In Mogadishu and Pyongyang
Apologies
Post war, smiling Germans, not daring to snarl, not daring to growl, needing to prove they’re not murderers, by desperately having desperately boring non-blond friends
Oh how they can laugh, mechanically, at nothing, nothing at all
Get over it I tell them, STOP laughing!
You did nothing wrong, but I might!
History According to my Amanuensis Entering Francis Fukuyama's historic End, Isn'tequal to entering the End of a Llama, named Francis
Plunge Thank you for shaving my wife, the man told me, lips frozen, barely able to move them, after I pulled him from the river, one December morning, in 1995.
Robes Hey, Man! Don't even try! Don't give me that eternal life blackmail! Get off it! Get off your arse and be a model of decency, which you won't because you can't, having others do the moaning and crying!
Honourables Never be interrupted, speak with authority about nothing, fast, faultness Shake hands but keep walking, keep talking No matter what, accuse, deny, object, and never commit Initiating anything, for amateurs and losers, you said
Only August Meretricious, Bitch, a wasted John slurred to the hooker.
Why, thank you, Happy New Year, she mocked for free, sipping the drink he had sent her
Culs-de-sac I thought he came from the Firths of Tay and Forth, in Fife But he was from Queer Hollow, a quaint place near sleepy, near Quail Hollow, a place I'd rather neither enter, nor have its slip sliding slopes to follow
The Times Economies in liberal democracies erratic and volatile
Political patterns in open societies unpredictable
Climate everywhere indescribably unstable
But fashion ossified
And music agony
Lips fishy, skins reptilian. hormones crashing out like Formula I
Erections lasting more than 4 hours examined, unless one’s private physician gay, then better check another hand
Yet all adjuncts of non-naturalistic carrying on and products of categorical imperatives
related to lunar death
and weather, not here but on the sun
Go Fuck Yourselves
Every couple of months my travelling neighbours announce their forthcoming return, but after they get here don’t ring my bell, or bid me goodbye when leaving again In the street they smile and ask how I am, not bothering to wait for my reply
Unconcerned otherwise they worry but dare not speak about money, disease and old age, also fearing storms, floods, fires, loud noise, accidents, holdups and theft
Hiding, thinking absence saves their hide, Is life
Though last time they did ask me to look after their plants
With me saying why bother, they’re dying like you are, as far as anyone can tell
Last Call
A lush and sultry night A mist of shadows, a veil of Blues, a breeze of fine, white breasts in semi-darkness Loathing rush and hushing other voices, making leaving very slow and She the stage, not otherwise My mesmerizing waitress!
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