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Three More From Thirsty Poems

“and there arose the power of the glittering phrase”

until:
unable to live our lives the way we wanted to we
were freed up to live our lives the way we wanted
to. no. unable to live our lives the way we wanted to we
moved on to living them, the way, we felt, we should. no. un
able to live our lives the way we wanted to for
reasons, pretty good reasons we lived in a diagonal fashion
we lived out the fiction of those lives we always wanted to
but before, because out of straight living we
were banned from living we were not able to live
our lives, the way, we wanted, wanted to want to
do so we lived those other lives, lives of the
others lovers who we also, ironically, were.

from then on:
we retire from living
why should we why shouldn’t we?
it is like one day to look at the sky and what you do see
is that your whole life’s course fulcrums on
the weather and the smell and colour and taste and touch and smell of
cut flowers, wholesome is the porridge of these mornings
twice as dull. we started over.
changed my sex and sexuality
kissed openly what previously was despised
slept around
swallowed sperm
licked vaginas
had a time.


then:
taking up the unfinished work of before
approaching along a different, less previous, street
with desperation and respect so as to
they let us back in again with little fuss
we get shut up in their unpleasant drawing rooms
and gagged on soft stale biscuits that
our lascivious aunt and uncles forced on us
then we came home on the minor canal
that drained beside the access road
rushed down, got caught in the refusal of pools
in amongst the larvae heaving their loathsome tails
and ducks alighted to eat down some un
able to live the life we previously thought we could and
how clammy to feel the water suddenly suck on you
we plunged right in ruining our piebald golf shoes.
the pool ran over in the yard.

meanwhile:
“do you realise that we’ll never see each other again? now I’ve written it down, do you realise what it means? do you understand, do you understand? they are hurrying me and it is as if they had come to take me to my death.”
cross and re-cross the room.
walk down the garden.
look out at night, see.
the fox, the orange glaring.
consider this city to be beautiful which it is.
buy square-toed shoes.
buy african art if you must.
buy bad tea and throw it away.
get on a train, literally.
travel on that selfsame train.
get off again.
worry about the deteriorating state of your clothes.
by all means do so
fraying, fading in the hot wash.
bleached here by cold suns.
never get a chance to own agate; to own pearls!
move on from this to see.
how the world is gotten diminished.
now that renewal is not attainable.
collect stones on the memories of your beaches.
cry over the gas canister, and
all that it means to you.
look disapprovingly on the one.
way ring road and must you.
relive the after taste of their “peasant” cuisine.

suddenly:
I am not sure anyway if suffering really suits the bourgeoisie
that the proof should be placed on the varnished wood
side by side by side with however lovely the sound
is and if you are after the subject just try to
dominate it then don’t, no point in finding the
right way to say it after all of this and
if you do you don’t in where the point is
clumsily put the point is put at last and left
at that...unable to live but living it anyway

-----
at litton mill

at litton mill there
to raise issues relating to
an inheritance
lax sun on the pool
fires a jewel then is gone
rocks have it,
fronds shield it from invaders
generic birds nest it
why not me?

the weeds current occupancy
fans out like hair
combed by the algae groomed by the silt
whilst my sleazoid advocate
slimes up to daddy
petitioning, petitioning
no work for real men
mill widows have it
economic downturn
still keeps hold of this one thing
industry values it
where’s my share?

the chargéd air on the grass
will trespass all it can spare

a litton mill, alone
to deputise no more
re: my inheritance
in lieu of previous ignorance
daddy has it
the mill orphans die for it
the power of the wye
displays it.

I’ll settle
-----

space travel gets easier

“solar winds and how lovely that sounds.” better still
to always cling to the effigy press faces to
the points of forgiving in the chest fabric in
hale the compulsion of mustiness and does not the
very idea of fur-lined-lungs (about your lungs) love.
the effigy for all its good good nature love. the effigy
for being elastic, and soft and beige make love.
with the effigy bray promises into its earless ear.

wax deposits

space travel gets easier the second time around soon
you must leave the effigy to burn and not even
salvage the rag in which you might wrap your
fish-gaping face gaping. and blot out the smoke of this sun to
always have with you along with all your other fetishy
bits: a favourite pen, a compass, lint backed old stamps.

farm abroad

the spacemen’s immortal words, “ooee golly, it’s unreal.”
there should not ought to be a surrogate totem a
couch brought over stitched up of a similar fabric whose
fallow legs; too much time spent crouching in
damp environs and subsequently falling love with
quiet, muted people who seize you in an embrace
effigyesque. “getta grip voyager the age’s spirit spent.”

a nylon take on silk


the sea of tranquillity, how lovely that sounds
and even the moon is made of the strain in nylons
stuffed with the rags as those which are the comet’s tail......................

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