waylon and willie were the soundtrack to your youth
those outlaws presented
the perfect image
of what a man should be
to your teenage mind.
with their hair and beards,
their rough clothing
which spoke of other places
unlike middle-class
estates in england.
their songs of wild nights
and mornings in the
fresh, clean air.
they could handle bars
AND mountain lakes
and their minds
encompassed both
with equal sentimental
love. the outlaws spoke
of the loneliness of heroes
as you were lonely, tho
certainly no hero. they
made romance where your
father made only
the ugliness of duty
he never seemed to want.
your dad was squashed down
by responsibility, or
the angry urge to show
that he had sacrificed himself.
they were cowboy gypsies,
poets living out a dream
of women, drink, drugs
resistance of the hard iron
that gets into the soul
and kills it. this you knew
from watching how
he gave into his rages,
and left at dawn in
smart clothes heading
to the office, silent,
resentment bloody in his eyes.
this you knew because
he never really looked
when you showed a picture
or some writing to him.
he couldn't come back far
enough from the chilly
world he lived in, not
even to make a stab
at faking a reaction.
the outlaws set you free
from that fate, which
your road had been prepared
for. you might have those
chains laid about your arms
and legs by family, or
mortgage, but your mind
would always be your own
and always itch
to hike into the backwoods
to smoke and drink and dream
and be large, as Kesey says.
the outlaws helped you
to see your own life
as a movie in which
no one was the star but you.
every time you find
a secret path into the woods
you turn into a wounded hero
packing iron, on the run
even when you're carrying
two bags full of groceries
or heading off to work..
Saturday, November 25, 2006
NEW POEM BY AUSTIN McCARRON
Stone Water
In a room of stone,
at the gate of water:
to lose the friendship of air.
The draft of love:
underneath: the heart
is a fume of sinking rocks,
delivered by water, on seaflower ends.
Time grows feet,
suffering wings, on the upturned sole.
Tongue, crimson ladder,
zipped up in a uniform of skin:
I watch its images drown.
Mouth to mouth, mouth of hell,
plate of blood, I leave it with stone,
rolled over in front of its speechless eye.
The invitation of air:
we exchange cards; air visits my room;
we drink out of glass words a mix of empty signs.
The text of motion is like water to stars.
Austin McCarron lives in London.
In a room of stone,
at the gate of water:
to lose the friendship of air.
The draft of love:
underneath: the heart
is a fume of sinking rocks,
delivered by water, on seaflower ends.
Time grows feet,
suffering wings, on the upturned sole.
Tongue, crimson ladder,
zipped up in a uniform of skin:
I watch its images drown.
Mouth to mouth, mouth of hell,
plate of blood, I leave it with stone,
rolled over in front of its speechless eye.
The invitation of air:
we exchange cards; air visits my room;
we drink out of glass words a mix of empty signs.
The text of motion is like water to stars.
Austin McCarron lives in London.
love story
"jesus, what does it take with you?"
i remember one very kindly said
underneath her eiderdown one night
after her right hand failed to reach me
i remember one very kindly said
underneath her eiderdown one night
after her right hand failed to reach me
Friday, October 20, 2006
stepped out
w/ uncombed hair
and half sleeping
still, i stepped
out to check
if it was bin
day on my street--
my neighbour's bins
are always out
the night before, so
that wd tell me--
stepped out and i
was hit immediately
by such a blast
of gorgeous, chilly
rain i laughed--
impossible to
be angry now.
and half sleeping
still, i stepped
out to check
if it was bin
day on my street--
my neighbour's bins
are always out
the night before, so
that wd tell me--
stepped out and i
was hit immediately
by such a blast
of gorgeous, chilly
rain i laughed--
impossible to
be angry now.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
God Addresses The U.S.Congress
sit down, mortals,
and listen. i've
got something to say
that's been burning
a hole in my head
for too long. and
I've come a long
way, so don't interrupt.
you people have got
me feeling all cranky.
Let me start, if
i may, with the gays.
yes, the gays. please
stop rolling your eyes.
the gays are NOT
automatically
going to Hell,
any more than you
"saved" folks have
a free pass to Heaven
it's a matter
of character,
which i actually
said two thousand
years ago, need
i remind you.
the true marriage
is love, people,
whatever form that
it takes. and while
we're at it, i DON'T
go whispering
in president's ears
about war, other
than to hint
that it's usually wrong,
especially when oil
is the super-objective.
to be truthful
(i can hardly be
otherwise) it pisses
me right off
being used to excuse
such a mortal
folly as the resolution
of difference by
horror and violence.
my way is to love.
do you know what
that means?
but ah, even i
reach the end of
my rope, though
mine unfolds back
to the beginning
of time. when i
see suits worshipping
while my raggedy
children starve out
on the pavements,
or drown in the flood
waters your negligence
let in over the
cities, when i see
that, i'm tempted
to pack up the whole
damned operation,
zap this doomed
ball back to the dust
and repair to some
virginal edge of
the cosmos
to start over,
this time giving
dolphins opposable thumbs.
but i probably won't.
why? because my way
is love. LOVE.
love is my cross.
it's what makes me
put up with you
dumb sonsofbitches.
but don't assume
it is limitless.
don't assume you
can go on
perverting my Word
and be forgiven
every time, however
heinous the crime.
that's a warning. i
can crush you.
now get out of
my sight.and give
a stranger your wallet
before you drive
home tonight.
and listen. i've
got something to say
that's been burning
a hole in my head
for too long. and
I've come a long
way, so don't interrupt.
you people have got
me feeling all cranky.
Let me start, if
i may, with the gays.
yes, the gays. please
stop rolling your eyes.
the gays are NOT
automatically
going to Hell,
any more than you
"saved" folks have
a free pass to Heaven
it's a matter
of character,
which i actually
said two thousand
years ago, need
i remind you.
the true marriage
is love, people,
whatever form that
it takes. and while
we're at it, i DON'T
go whispering
in president's ears
about war, other
than to hint
that it's usually wrong,
especially when oil
is the super-objective.
to be truthful
(i can hardly be
otherwise) it pisses
me right off
being used to excuse
such a mortal
folly as the resolution
of difference by
horror and violence.
my way is to love.
do you know what
that means?
but ah, even i
reach the end of
my rope, though
mine unfolds back
to the beginning
of time. when i
see suits worshipping
while my raggedy
children starve out
on the pavements,
or drown in the flood
waters your negligence
let in over the
cities, when i see
that, i'm tempted
to pack up the whole
damned operation,
zap this doomed
ball back to the dust
and repair to some
virginal edge of
the cosmos
to start over,
this time giving
dolphins opposable thumbs.
but i probably won't.
why? because my way
is love. LOVE.
love is my cross.
it's what makes me
put up with you
dumb sonsofbitches.
but don't assume
it is limitless.
don't assume you
can go on
perverting my Word
and be forgiven
every time, however
heinous the crime.
that's a warning. i
can crush you.
now get out of
my sight.and give
a stranger your wallet
before you drive
home tonight.
Monday, October 16, 2006
LUKASH MEETS GWB
by Geoff William
In the cold doorway of dawn
lurks the one-eyed raven.
I see Lukash floating in a blue lake,
lavender blue, hiding from me your tongue.
Orchids bloom at the break of dawn,
slugs slide down stairways,
the mole digs beneath the stones.
The mole becomes a slug, a mosquito,
a locust, a rat, vermin, George Dubya Bush,
who sends the Zionists to swarm
over the Hashemites, to slaughter children, destroy orchards.
The children are neither with us or against us.
How could they know? You are either a slug
or a butterfly. But it is the slugs
who will destroy the olive trees.
Horror. Fear. Death lies in the wadi.
In the cold doorway of dawn
lurks the one-eyed raven.
I see Lukash floating in a blue lake,
lavender blue, hiding from me your tongue.
Orchids bloom at the break of dawn,
slugs slide down stairways,
the mole digs beneath the stones.
The mole becomes a slug, a mosquito,
a locust, a rat, vermin, George Dubya Bush,
who sends the Zionists to swarm
over the Hashemites, to slaughter children, destroy orchards.
The children are neither with us or against us.
How could they know? You are either a slug
or a butterfly. But it is the slugs
who will destroy the olive trees.
Horror. Fear. Death lies in the wadi.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
PAYBACK
by Steve DeFrance
I go downstairs.
My neighbor's feeding fish heads
to some local dogs.
I find my car.
The day's hot enough to
glaze pottery in the back seat.
I start the engine & crank up the air
conditioner. It's running hot.
I flip on the radio.
Bombers race toward Baghdad.
People on the street look dazed.
At the corner, a pregnant woman
stops in the center of the busy street
doing a body count of her growing family.
My knuckles grow white on the wheel.
I miss the light.
Hot. No wind.
The car's a jar with a lid.
I roll the windows down.
Try to cool off.
Trees on the street cringe
from the heat. Birds have stopped
flying, instead they huddle
in melting pools of color,
grey, brown and black,
heads bobbing slowly.
Next to me on the car seat,
a half-eaten Chocolate Hershey Bar
has exploded.
All that is plastic is devolving
into petroleum ooze.
Fillings in my teeth are burning,
touching a nerve.
Rounding a corner, the asphalt's
melting--heat ripples rise
as if from an Iraqi mirage.
High Noon in L.A.
Ahead--two sweating men charge
snarling from trucks, it's all about a parking place.
They fight in the street. Bone & flesh collide.
Under a deserted building, a lone dog wails.
I eye the ageing buildings on this
block--dying Victorians--blemished,
battered, broken & bleeding.
Dwellings filled with growing families.
Spilling over stoops, rambling down steps,
scattering into the street, where they spray
each other down with water hoses.
Lupine smiles seem to contradict the menace
glinting from their predatory eyes.
Just as it is too hot for the fat red spiders
who sit in heat shock--watching
the death dance of the web-caught flies.
These predators are not in a hurry.
It is too hot for them to dine on me.
They will dine when the sun's down.
I turn right onto 7th Street.
All in all, it's a day that causes
ordinary men to break cue sticks over bald heads.
A day so sweltering it makes
common thieves too hot & too wet to steal.
On this day--shrieking babies are being
smashed against cement walls,
and regretfully married women are sharpening long knives,
sweating and staring at the soft underbelly
of their husbands' throat.
It's a grand day for getting even,
a day for settling festering scores.
A day for payback
a day designed for vengeance.
A day to use baseball bats in alleys.
A day to swing socks filled with ball bearings.
A day for reprisals by the damned.
It's just that kind of day.
Driving by the Park on 7th Street,
I see hawks hankering for retribution,
sitting in the shade of hemlock trees
considering all possibilities.
I go downstairs.
My neighbor's feeding fish heads
to some local dogs.
I find my car.
The day's hot enough to
glaze pottery in the back seat.
I start the engine & crank up the air
conditioner. It's running hot.
I flip on the radio.
Bombers race toward Baghdad.
People on the street look dazed.
At the corner, a pregnant woman
stops in the center of the busy street
doing a body count of her growing family.
My knuckles grow white on the wheel.
I miss the light.
Hot. No wind.
The car's a jar with a lid.
I roll the windows down.
Try to cool off.
Trees on the street cringe
from the heat. Birds have stopped
flying, instead they huddle
in melting pools of color,
grey, brown and black,
heads bobbing slowly.
Next to me on the car seat,
a half-eaten Chocolate Hershey Bar
has exploded.
All that is plastic is devolving
into petroleum ooze.
Fillings in my teeth are burning,
touching a nerve.
Rounding a corner, the asphalt's
melting--heat ripples rise
as if from an Iraqi mirage.
High Noon in L.A.
Ahead--two sweating men charge
snarling from trucks, it's all about a parking place.
They fight in the street. Bone & flesh collide.
Under a deserted building, a lone dog wails.
I eye the ageing buildings on this
block--dying Victorians--blemished,
battered, broken & bleeding.
Dwellings filled with growing families.
Spilling over stoops, rambling down steps,
scattering into the street, where they spray
each other down with water hoses.
Lupine smiles seem to contradict the menace
glinting from their predatory eyes.
Just as it is too hot for the fat red spiders
who sit in heat shock--watching
the death dance of the web-caught flies.
These predators are not in a hurry.
It is too hot for them to dine on me.
They will dine when the sun's down.
I turn right onto 7th Street.
All in all, it's a day that causes
ordinary men to break cue sticks over bald heads.
A day so sweltering it makes
common thieves too hot & too wet to steal.
On this day--shrieking babies are being
smashed against cement walls,
and regretfully married women are sharpening long knives,
sweating and staring at the soft underbelly
of their husbands' throat.
It's a grand day for getting even,
a day for settling festering scores.
A day for payback
a day designed for vengeance.
A day to use baseball bats in alleys.
A day to swing socks filled with ball bearings.
A day for reprisals by the damned.
It's just that kind of day.
Driving by the Park on 7th Street,
I see hawks hankering for retribution,
sitting in the shade of hemlock trees
considering all possibilities.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
fridge magnets
we bought each other fridge magnets
declaring our undying friendship
just before our friendship died.
i see them each day
as i reach in for my eggs and juice.
i take a masochistic pleasure
in their cruel reminder
of the illusion that we lost.
and (though i'm ashamed to say)
a manly pride
in the way that i destroyed it.
this is why you'll see them
clinging to my fridge door for a while.
how could i possibly remove
something that affords such fun
when i have little else to occupy
my twisted mind?
declaring our undying friendship
just before our friendship died.
i see them each day
as i reach in for my eggs and juice.
i take a masochistic pleasure
in their cruel reminder
of the illusion that we lost.
and (though i'm ashamed to say)
a manly pride
in the way that i destroyed it.
this is why you'll see them
clinging to my fridge door for a while.
how could i possibly remove
something that affords such fun
when i have little else to occupy
my twisted mind?
Sunday, October 08, 2006
a.m., bathwater running
i sit, reading.
voices murmur
on the radio.
a sharp light
breaks through
the curtain.
i notice
birdsong.
i hear a car
passing on
the road below.
i turn the page.
i realise:
i'm happy.
my mood
crashes thru the floor.
voices murmur
on the radio.
a sharp light
breaks through
the curtain.
i notice
birdsong.
i hear a car
passing on
the road below.
i turn the page.
i realise:
i'm happy.
my mood
crashes thru the floor.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Another Friday
it's delicious, coming out of work
into the cold and rain
knowing you don't have to go back
and see those fucking people
for three long days
you descend the hill towards the main road
like a liberated hostage rushing towards
a waiting family of careless shoppers,
pissed off commuters going home
and sneering kids.
the squalls of rain blow out the dust,
the radioactive dust, of work
your optimism rises, and it lasts
about another thirty seconds
which is when you realise
you are totally alone.
another friday with the bottle and the couch ahead.
into the cold and rain
knowing you don't have to go back
and see those fucking people
for three long days
you descend the hill towards the main road
like a liberated hostage rushing towards
a waiting family of careless shoppers,
pissed off commuters going home
and sneering kids.
the squalls of rain blow out the dust,
the radioactive dust, of work
your optimism rises, and it lasts
about another thirty seconds
which is when you realise
you are totally alone.
another friday with the bottle and the couch ahead.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
The Sky Seems Bluer
the sky seems bluer
this crisp october day
stepping out to catch a bus to work.
now you are not my friend
the morning light seems brighter,
the cold air bites more sweetly
than it did before.
with your absence you have given me
so much that your presence
failed to provide,
so much
that i should thank you for.
with this poem i thank you.
the new weather of life after you
exceeds my boldest hopes by miles.
this crisp october day
stepping out to catch a bus to work.
now you are not my friend
the morning light seems brighter,
the cold air bites more sweetly
than it did before.
with your absence you have given me
so much that your presence
failed to provide,
so much
that i should thank you for.
with this poem i thank you.
the new weather of life after you
exceeds my boldest hopes by miles.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Bruce
LOVE WITH A SAGITTARIAN DEPRESSIVE
I was happy
when I was
with you,
all evidence
to dispute that
notwithstanding.
I thought
I'd have you
to resent
forever.
Now I miss you
where I wished
you gone.
I was happy
when I was
with you,
all evidence
to dispute that
notwithstanding.
I thought
I'd have you
to resent
forever.
Now I miss you
where I wished
you gone.
Bruce
While I Bleed For Love
I have realised that my heart is broken
four months after I split with her
(now ain't that me all over).
But I can't tell her, I think she ought to know
and I can't hear hers isn't broken too.
Nor can i play the penitent,
pretending it was all my fault,
though dissecting it for blame
would be pointless masochism.
I just keep remembering pleasant things
we did, and finding things she bought for me
like the plunger I unclogged the sink with
while handwashing my western shirt just now.
I want to phone. Talking to her feels so right.
but I can't hear indifference in her voice,
a trace of evidence that we are really over..
I'd rather risk not having her again
than losing her forever while I bleed for love.
I have realised that my heart is broken
four months after I split with her
(now ain't that me all over).
But I can't tell her, I think she ought to know
and I can't hear hers isn't broken too.
Nor can i play the penitent,
pretending it was all my fault,
though dissecting it for blame
would be pointless masochism.
I just keep remembering pleasant things
we did, and finding things she bought for me
like the plunger I unclogged the sink with
while handwashing my western shirt just now.
I want to phone. Talking to her feels so right.
but I can't hear indifference in her voice,
a trace of evidence that we are really over..
I'd rather risk not having her again
than losing her forever while I bleed for love.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Bruce
Storm
I lie on my couch and listen to the rain.
It pours and pours, and then the light turns yellow .
My heart thunders like the sky will soon.
Perfect metaphor, i think when the flash
arrives, and the crack and rumble.
Like the angry end of comfortable illusion.
I should pick up the telephone. But I
know I won't remember how to talk.
I lie on my couch and listen to the rain.
It pours and pours, and then the light turns yellow .
My heart thunders like the sky will soon.
Perfect metaphor, i think when the flash
arrives, and the crack and rumble.
Like the angry end of comfortable illusion.
I should pick up the telephone. But I
know I won't remember how to talk.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Bruce
THE EVIDENCE
Days playing Hitman and Wolfenstein.
Calling to discuss my halting progress.
Shopping for doughnuts and
bread and cheese.
Watching 'Jeremy Kyle', detesting
his condescension (so much like mine).
Sitting close on the sofa.
Touching hands occasionally.
Bristling, thinking There should be more!
What more?!
Once again the evidence
is against the genius I once presumed
to be my greatest gift.
GO BACK
Ahh, go back, go back
to leaning on the bench
outside the Lamb pub
in Little Harrowden,
waiting in the cold and dark,
looking down the hill
toward the bridge
watching for her car.
She is heading home from work,
stopping for a pint with you.
Go back, go back,
turn the constellations overhead.
Days playing Hitman and Wolfenstein.
Calling to discuss my halting progress.
Shopping for doughnuts and
bread and cheese.
Watching 'Jeremy Kyle', detesting
his condescension (so much like mine).
Sitting close on the sofa.
Touching hands occasionally.
Bristling, thinking There should be more!
What more?!
Once again the evidence
is against the genius I once presumed
to be my greatest gift.
GO BACK
Ahh, go back, go back
to leaning on the bench
outside the Lamb pub
in Little Harrowden,
waiting in the cold and dark,
looking down the hill
toward the bridge
watching for her car.
She is heading home from work,
stopping for a pint with you.
Go back, go back,
turn the constellations overhead.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Tim Sansom
UNCLE BILL
Granddad, I love you even though you’re not a nice man. I’m embarrassed that fisticuffs still impress you at seventy years of age, but I look at your balding crown and see your spectacles and feel I could learn from you. You beat up my angelic Mum and I pity your conformity and your fashionable misogyny but I think you adore her. You are a boring drunken cunt but that’s what the world has taught you to be. You smell well tended and you look fastidious and regal. I love your scarf and your cockney confidence. It is a confidence which sings out it’s expletives in kind of affection that rises above anything academia could afford and knows it. I have to confess that if I had been a youth and were present when you engaged in combat with Dad I would have been exhausted of alternative choices than to have fucked you up so as to make you labour in walking and ashamed to show your face for quite a spell. But I still love you because I can see you are unquestioning and pond skimming market trader and I approve of your general disapproval of all things in life seemingly revered by the masses without foundation. I miss you and I miss your kind. You stank of booze and fags as you persevered each night to insert your key into the Lyndale lock through your balance hindered handicap. I’m told you were a womaniser and that you broke your second wife’s heart. But I want to believe that to have been ego and mindlessness rather than snarl and sadism. Mind you, your last girlfriend was a beehive hairdo powered by a dynamo wasn’t she Bill? She might have been a bit of karma for you mate, translated into your vernacular Bill that’s “Wot goes rand cums rand” mate! She was as warm and as humane as Himmler and that was if she was having a good day, but I suppose that we should love our enemies. I loved your son too, he was a lot like me, quite mad, quite confused and not a beneficiary of the grape and the grain. I don’t blame him for protecting you (His Dad) for as I have said, I would have done the very same. Your daughter loved you and she admired you bravery in facing death. Anyone who thinks you were a cunt I understand, but for all that I’m sorry we can’t chat anymore as is the case with most of the dead. I doubt you had many secrets or even much depth, you were probably very young when you realised what a load of rubbish the latter was hey Bill?
Well Uncle Bill, I may see you soon in another dimension but if that’s not how it works and it’s just lights out only, thanks for that World War One gun layer and special thanks for joining Emily in creating the enigma that was my mother. For kicking her in the head I’m afraid I have to inflict upon you the most severe punishment I can think of and that is as follows, spend a good many moons thinking about it, then when your soul is finally destroyed with the attrition of remorse and regret, see if you can’t spruce yourself up, get on your best garb and have a walk down the Steyne. The Steyne known only to the Saints and to the Father himself and make a few changes to your outlook. Whetere or not you do, I promise I myself shall.
Your Grandson Tim
TIM SANSOM EARLY 2000
Granddad, I love you even though you’re not a nice man. I’m embarrassed that fisticuffs still impress you at seventy years of age, but I look at your balding crown and see your spectacles and feel I could learn from you. You beat up my angelic Mum and I pity your conformity and your fashionable misogyny but I think you adore her. You are a boring drunken cunt but that’s what the world has taught you to be. You smell well tended and you look fastidious and regal. I love your scarf and your cockney confidence. It is a confidence which sings out it’s expletives in kind of affection that rises above anything academia could afford and knows it. I have to confess that if I had been a youth and were present when you engaged in combat with Dad I would have been exhausted of alternative choices than to have fucked you up so as to make you labour in walking and ashamed to show your face for quite a spell. But I still love you because I can see you are unquestioning and pond skimming market trader and I approve of your general disapproval of all things in life seemingly revered by the masses without foundation. I miss you and I miss your kind. You stank of booze and fags as you persevered each night to insert your key into the Lyndale lock through your balance hindered handicap. I’m told you were a womaniser and that you broke your second wife’s heart. But I want to believe that to have been ego and mindlessness rather than snarl and sadism. Mind you, your last girlfriend was a beehive hairdo powered by a dynamo wasn’t she Bill? She might have been a bit of karma for you mate, translated into your vernacular Bill that’s “Wot goes rand cums rand” mate! She was as warm and as humane as Himmler and that was if she was having a good day, but I suppose that we should love our enemies. I loved your son too, he was a lot like me, quite mad, quite confused and not a beneficiary of the grape and the grain. I don’t blame him for protecting you (His Dad) for as I have said, I would have done the very same. Your daughter loved you and she admired you bravery in facing death. Anyone who thinks you were a cunt I understand, but for all that I’m sorry we can’t chat anymore as is the case with most of the dead. I doubt you had many secrets or even much depth, you were probably very young when you realised what a load of rubbish the latter was hey Bill?
Well Uncle Bill, I may see you soon in another dimension but if that’s not how it works and it’s just lights out only, thanks for that World War One gun layer and special thanks for joining Emily in creating the enigma that was my mother. For kicking her in the head I’m afraid I have to inflict upon you the most severe punishment I can think of and that is as follows, spend a good many moons thinking about it, then when your soul is finally destroyed with the attrition of remorse and regret, see if you can’t spruce yourself up, get on your best garb and have a walk down the Steyne. The Steyne known only to the Saints and to the Father himself and make a few changes to your outlook. Whetere or not you do, I promise I myself shall.
Your Grandson Tim
TIM SANSOM EARLY 2000
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Ronald Baatz
THE WIND WANTS TO SLEEP WITH ME
It's a winter day like any other winter day.
It is cold and windy out there and the
wind chimes are being thrashed about.
The most important thing i have to do
is make an early fire, and maintain it until
i climb the stairs around midnight to crawl
into bed. The bedroom faces the road,
the bedroom which i've been sleeping in
for fifteen years now, three years
with one woman, seven with another.
The other five years i've slept alone.
On these cold winter nights the wind
tries to muscle its way into the house,
into the bedroom, into my bed.
The wind wants to sleep with me,
but i don't want to sleep with it.
How can i tell the cold winter wind
that i am not in love with it?
MY DOGS WON'T ALLOW ME TO DREAM
WITHOUT IT
They won't allow me to dream without
my lime-green shirt on
I am to have my lime-green shirt on
in every dream
If i am without it then they wake me
with loud barking
The only place i own this lime-green shirt
is in my dreams
It has long sleeves which i roll up
and i leave the top two buttons open
In every dream i might possibly dream
i am to be in lime-green
Whether it's a good dream in paradise
or a bad dream in hell
My dogs insist i wear my lime-green shirt
and that i smell from freshly cooked pork chops
from ANGEL HEAD #4
It's a winter day like any other winter day.
It is cold and windy out there and the
wind chimes are being thrashed about.
The most important thing i have to do
is make an early fire, and maintain it until
i climb the stairs around midnight to crawl
into bed. The bedroom faces the road,
the bedroom which i've been sleeping in
for fifteen years now, three years
with one woman, seven with another.
The other five years i've slept alone.
On these cold winter nights the wind
tries to muscle its way into the house,
into the bedroom, into my bed.
The wind wants to sleep with me,
but i don't want to sleep with it.
How can i tell the cold winter wind
that i am not in love with it?
MY DOGS WON'T ALLOW ME TO DREAM
WITHOUT IT
They won't allow me to dream without
my lime-green shirt on
I am to have my lime-green shirt on
in every dream
If i am without it then they wake me
with loud barking
The only place i own this lime-green shirt
is in my dreams
It has long sleeves which i roll up
and i leave the top two buttons open
In every dream i might possibly dream
i am to be in lime-green
Whether it's a good dream in paradise
or a bad dream in hell
My dogs insist i wear my lime-green shirt
and that i smell from freshly cooked pork chops
from ANGEL HEAD #4
Monday, June 26, 2006
Tim Sansom
THE WOODS
The gilded trim of the linnet’s wing
Splay tapered to her feathered form
Whose delicate maths sway and swing
Each blissful breeze, each trying storm
Dawn’s warbling sweet cacophonies
Calm gently amidst glistening dew
Earth’s rhythmic fulfilled prophecies
So regularly ensure they do
Those shrieks and tweets from dense wet woods
Play sweet and real trustworthy scales
A music not puffed up but good
Our spinning sphere recounts her tales
Capillaries of unmarred streams
Like slim deft digits reach and spread
Descending dales steps and steins
To quench life’s thirst and cleanse the dead
Our forbears knew the trees I’m told
No map nor compass was required
They read on bark the sap and mould
It told of rainfall routes and time
Moist worms recoil from two for joy
With six for gold scarce next to us
Above behold each girl and boy
Our swallow’s airborne exodus
Each morning cracks with leaps of light
Awaking mice, sedating owls
Then stirs of warmth replace the night
As black shapes change to grazing cows
And deep into the covert woods
Each fable dances with each myth
No soul can claim “They are no good!”
Nor that the Goblins do not live.
The gilded trim of the linnet’s wing
Splay tapered to her feathered form
Whose delicate maths sway and swing
Each blissful breeze, each trying storm
Dawn’s warbling sweet cacophonies
Calm gently amidst glistening dew
Earth’s rhythmic fulfilled prophecies
So regularly ensure they do
Those shrieks and tweets from dense wet woods
Play sweet and real trustworthy scales
A music not puffed up but good
Our spinning sphere recounts her tales
Capillaries of unmarred streams
Like slim deft digits reach and spread
Descending dales steps and steins
To quench life’s thirst and cleanse the dead
Our forbears knew the trees I’m told
No map nor compass was required
They read on bark the sap and mould
It told of rainfall routes and time
Moist worms recoil from two for joy
With six for gold scarce next to us
Above behold each girl and boy
Our swallow’s airborne exodus
Each morning cracks with leaps of light
Awaking mice, sedating owls
Then stirs of warmth replace the night
As black shapes change to grazing cows
And deep into the covert woods
Each fable dances with each myth
No soul can claim “They are no good!”
Nor that the Goblins do not live.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)