The singer's voice is neither male nor female,
a whisky sweet as mead
and smokey as the Romeo and Juliets
I chomped when I was trying to look butch
and fooling no-one. I drift down
back to the road out by the coachworks,
the bridge that made my stomach flip, Twist
in my Sobriety on radio, my father's angry voice,
'Is that a man or woman?' I pitch forward,
land on your sofa, resting my head on your shoulder
as a whole vinyl record of Tanita's voice
spills out around us. Thoroughly domestic,
all I ever wanted: what chance did I have,
what did she have, what chance any of
the objects in your gravity,
linked in non-locality, colliding atoms
bouncing off this moment?
That night I made White Russians like a tic,
kept that Dido song I liked trapped on repeat
and sang along - 'I want to be a hunter
again' - and somehow got home, drunker,
almost, than I've been before or since;
that repeated snatch of the Pathetique
hummed under my breath
following Maria round the seminary, shamming
that I knew anything real about music;
trying to reorder Asian History,
the last shelf of my section,
while Annie Lennox sings of changes drifting
the morning after when we talked divorce.
No more I love you's. Language is leaving me
in silence.
* * *
And, on the stroke of midnight, here's NaPoWriMo poem 18. This was inspired by listening to CN Lester's fabulous album Ashes, which I finally got round to listening to today, and which I recommend you listen to as well - they do a brilliant version of 'Joan of Arc', the Leonard Cohen song. Because I like to be peculiar, the title of this poem is taken, not from a CN Lester song but from a Rae Spoon one, 'Come on Forest Fire (Burn the Disco Down)', mainly because I realised when I ran over the draft that I'd left Rae out and couldn't see any obvious way to crowbar him in there. It's not in response to any particular prompt, but I suppose, in the sheer number of song lyrics quoted, there's perhaps a little bit of a hangover from yesterday's instruction to include a song lyric in a poem.
***Edit 19/04/12***: I've changed the title. 'Ask the Colonial Ghosts' was a nice way of crowbarring a Rae Spon reference into the poem, but didn't really fit on the day when the news broke that Britain had suppressed files about our suppression of independence movements in the 50s. So instead I've just gone for the names of the musicians featured in the poem, in order.
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
NaPoWriMo Poem Seventeen: An Open Letter to a Hollow Man
Dear Mr Gove, I hope you don't mind me writing.
Today's prompt was to send an epistle
to an inanimate object. I thought of you
(I know, I know - we're not supposed to know,
but some of us have noticed, Mr G.
Your Secretary does a good impression
of that preposterous voice you used to do.
His talent for ventriloquism? That was just dumb luck).
It's fitting you've gone 2D. Not only since it's retro,
when even silver screens aspire to ape
our dance through pliant space. When holograms
of dead rap stars play live at Coachella. You were never
even that real, Mr G: a big hollow man
with a fistful of sham, and a shitty line in titles.
Celsius 7/7? We're lucky, I guess,
that the only writing you'll be known for now
is the price tag sticker on your back
and the Property of Rupert Murdoch
which I guess someone from the NASUWT
has scribbled where your arse should be.
Anyway, my mission for today, as I say,
is to write to an object bereft
of consciousness, indeed, of conscience - you, in other words -
and, furthermore, to proffer both a fact
and some form of fruit. So, first, let me take you back
to 1989, a viaduct in Aberdeen, a young man
fuelled by commie rage and Tennent's,
detourning a piece of the state apparatus
- a traffic cone, to be exact -
forty feet from Union Street
into the path of traffic passing
on the road below, then finding himself
bundled in a police van. Did you call them pigs?
Because that was you, of course, when you were still 3D,
before you sat in committee rooms and labelled teachers Trots
for objecting to your choice of Commisar;
before your flatpack afterlife propped in the office cupboard,
where you rest now, waiting, patient, for the morning
when your underlings will drag you out, unnoticed.
Long time to wait. Would you like a banana?
No - fair point. Nothing to digest it with. No matter.
Tell you what. I'll leave the skin down here.
* * *
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt was to write an epistolary poem - a poem in the form of a letter - to an inanimate object. Who better to write to, then, than Cardboard Gove, last seen in NaPoWriMo Poem Nine?
There were a number of other things the poem had to include: a song lyric (here taken from 'Big Hollow Man' by Danielle Dax); an 'oddball adjective-noun combination' (in this case, 'pliant space' - not that oddball, I know); a fruit (the banana); a street name and a measurement of distance ('forty feet from Union Street') and a historical fact - in this case Gove's arrest for chucking a traffic cone off a viaduct in Aberdeen back in 1989. I bet it really annoys him, that people keep bringing that up...
Today's prompt was to send an epistle
to an inanimate object. I thought of you
(I know, I know - we're not supposed to know,
but some of us have noticed, Mr G.
Your Secretary does a good impression
of that preposterous voice you used to do.
His talent for ventriloquism? That was just dumb luck).
It's fitting you've gone 2D. Not only since it's retro,
when even silver screens aspire to ape
our dance through pliant space. When holograms
of dead rap stars play live at Coachella. You were never
even that real, Mr G: a big hollow man
with a fistful of sham, and a shitty line in titles.
Celsius 7/7? We're lucky, I guess,
that the only writing you'll be known for now
is the price tag sticker on your back
and the Property of Rupert Murdoch
which I guess someone from the NASUWT
has scribbled where your arse should be.
Anyway, my mission for today, as I say,
is to write to an object bereft
of consciousness, indeed, of conscience - you, in other words -
and, furthermore, to proffer both a fact
and some form of fruit. So, first, let me take you back
to 1989, a viaduct in Aberdeen, a young man
fuelled by commie rage and Tennent's,
detourning a piece of the state apparatus
- a traffic cone, to be exact -
forty feet from Union Street
into the path of traffic passing
on the road below, then finding himself
bundled in a police van. Did you call them pigs?
Because that was you, of course, when you were still 3D,
before you sat in committee rooms and labelled teachers Trots
for objecting to your choice of Commisar;
before your flatpack afterlife propped in the office cupboard,
where you rest now, waiting, patient, for the morning
when your underlings will drag you out, unnoticed.
Long time to wait. Would you like a banana?
No - fair point. Nothing to digest it with. No matter.
Tell you what. I'll leave the skin down here.
* * *
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt was to write an epistolary poem - a poem in the form of a letter - to an inanimate object. Who better to write to, then, than Cardboard Gove, last seen in NaPoWriMo Poem Nine?
There were a number of other things the poem had to include: a song lyric (here taken from 'Big Hollow Man' by Danielle Dax); an 'oddball adjective-noun combination' (in this case, 'pliant space' - not that oddball, I know); a fruit (the banana); a street name and a measurement of distance ('forty feet from Union Street') and a historical fact - in this case Gove's arrest for chucking a traffic cone off a viaduct in Aberdeen back in 1989. I bet it really annoys him, that people keep bringing that up...
Monday, 16 April 2012
NaPoWriMo Poem 16: In Ruins
The bottom of the reservoir
is visible: cracked mud,
like a turtle's skin in close-up.
Driverless, the harvester
traces satellite-directed lines
up and down the wheatfield.
There's a gyre of plastic
turning in the ocean,
a belt of metal junk in space,
cardboard spread
in front of empty shopfronts
opposite the rich man's bank on Strand.
There's a hollowness in birdsong, now,
a slowing in the pulse of stars.
Everything is winding down
but the chatter of salaried egos,
selling Right Thought as the factories close,
as if self-belief could mug thermodynamics.
Refresh the page. Above the picture
of the smiling Chair,
the share price tumbles.
* * *
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a piece starting from an image. Leafing through the paper I found a picture of a dried-up reservoir down south and started writing from that. Because the pictures in it share some of the same feeling as the new Patrick Keiller film, 'Robinson in Ruins' (and in fact the image in the second verse is taken from the film), I decided to reference that in the title.
is visible: cracked mud,
like a turtle's skin in close-up.
Driverless, the harvester
traces satellite-directed lines
up and down the wheatfield.
There's a gyre of plastic
turning in the ocean,
a belt of metal junk in space,
cardboard spread
in front of empty shopfronts
opposite the rich man's bank on Strand.
There's a hollowness in birdsong, now,
a slowing in the pulse of stars.
Everything is winding down
but the chatter of salaried egos,
selling Right Thought as the factories close,
as if self-belief could mug thermodynamics.
Refresh the page. Above the picture
of the smiling Chair,
the share price tumbles.
* * *
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a piece starting from an image. Leafing through the paper I found a picture of a dried-up reservoir down south and started writing from that. Because the pictures in it share some of the same feeling as the new Patrick Keiller film, 'Robinson in Ruins' (and in fact the image in the second verse is taken from the film), I decided to reference that in the title.
Sunday, 15 April 2012
NaPoWriMo Poem Fifteen
This is just to say
I have written
a parody
of that Carlos Williams
poem
which
you are probably
tired
of seeing parodied
Forgive me
it was so obvious
so short
and so easy
a parody
of that Carlos Williams
poem
which
you are probably
tired
of seeing parodied
Forgive me
it was so obvious
so short
and so easy
NaPoWriMo Poem Fourteen: Sonnet
Get up. Grit your teeth and you'll get through
the days of people you respect as much
as pubic fungus ordering what you do
with a fake-friendly shoulder-touch
they learned when they got their certificate
in watching eyes and using visual words
as advised by the Bandler pontificate.
Get used to speaking and not being heard:
it's not so bad when you can think of slicing
the tendons of those who say attitude
is all that matters, then advising
them that if they can't walk then they're screwed.
Get up, clench your fists and grit your teeth:
revenge and rage'll get you through the week.
the days of people you respect as much
as pubic fungus ordering what you do
with a fake-friendly shoulder-touch
they learned when they got their certificate
in watching eyes and using visual words
as advised by the Bandler pontificate.
Get used to speaking and not being heard:
it's not so bad when you can think of slicing
the tendons of those who say attitude
is all that matters, then advising
them that if they can't walk then they're screwed.
Get up, clench your fists and grit your teeth:
revenge and rage'll get you through the week.
Friday, 13 April 2012
NaPoWriMo Poem Thirteen: Deja Vu Pays Your Wages
Morning city light. Not gold or yellow,
not exactly white. A thinning wash
of creme anglaise rolled on the concrete's grey.
The baggy jeans of girls who stand at bus stops.
Poise that doesn't shift from foot to foot
or fuss with hair. A sense of being now
and visibly un-policed. Facade
like all the unsold studios
that look out on the river.
Cool, urbane, a British stab
at New York self-possession.
No-one home.
not exactly white. A thinning wash
of creme anglaise rolled on the concrete's grey.
The baggy jeans of girls who stand at bus stops.
Poise that doesn't shift from foot to foot
or fuss with hair. A sense of being now
and visibly un-policed. Facade
like all the unsold studios
that look out on the river.
Cool, urbane, a British stab
at New York self-possession.
No-one home.
Thursday, 12 April 2012
NaPoWriMo Poem Twelve: Ordet Soy
Frodo sure knows Gollum's funky:
taught his mouse a lively tune!
We berated fire-truckers!
I'm licked-out and highly-toned!
Dinner's down the bin - this weeder
was outmoded! Stringy shite!
All I mentioned was the Whedons.
Whoa, that Santa's frugal, right?
Sights on schlongs, a million long men
tease a goose, the gadgies melt
butter, mmm - but stir no felt
moose - a weirder farter, phoning
Dan, the grosser, warty young'un.
Anus fundies fund Zeus-seeing:
War on Holness! Why's he ringing?
Mischa's signing Joe's balloon.
Jawa rock, no rhyming sealer
sigh, nine toffs? Damn! Merde! Gerunds!
* * *
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a 'homophonic translation' - basically, to translate a poem in a foreign language into English by changing each word into an English word it sounds like. So, here's two verses of Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' translated thus. I stopped after two because, really, where can you go when you've been reduced to swearing at gerunds?
.
taught his mouse a lively tune!
We berated fire-truckers!
I'm licked-out and highly-toned!
Dinner's down the bin - this weeder
was outmoded! Stringy shite!
All I mentioned was the Whedons.
Whoa, that Santa's frugal, right?
Sights on schlongs, a million long men
tease a goose, the gadgies melt
butter, mmm - but stir no felt
moose - a weirder farter, phoning
Dan, the grosser, warty young'un.
Anus fundies fund Zeus-seeing:
War on Holness! Why's he ringing?
Mischa's signing Joe's balloon.
Jawa rock, no rhyming sealer
sigh, nine toffs? Damn! Merde! Gerunds!
* * *
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a 'homophonic translation' - basically, to translate a poem in a foreign language into English by changing each word into an English word it sounds like. So, here's two verses of Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' translated thus. I stopped after two because, really, where can you go when you've been reduced to swearing at gerunds?
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)