Thursday, 2 August 2018

Political Poems

Glimpsing a  hint of something 

a multitude of scales 
of individuated  
of differences 

                       she’s sculpting her anger and disappointment into a brightness 
                       releasing it to join the others and strengthen their intervention




Living by the building of walls,
afraid of the dark and the different,
whistling Dixie,

they take the vain signs emitted by their masters far too seriously,
killing for a heavily guarded, 
        aggressive timidity.




Teeth of the worms of the teeth in a scarlet pit;
               blazers and shining buttons and cocktails
and teeth clinking against glasses and worms and the teeth of the worms
               and auto-satisfaction in the smiling pit, ringed with diamonds,
and the crisp shirt stained pink against deep pink flesh.






… pick up and shift it shift it over there over
there shift it drop it off then pick that up and shift it 
over there wrap it up then pick it up and shift
it over there there over there shift it pick it up and shift it 
unwrap it break it down and rebuild it across those four 
then wrap them all up and shift them shift them 
pick them up and put that one here put that one there put
that one here put that one here shift them put that in there 
put this one in here in here in here then that one there on there
are you trying to put it there there make a career out of that
pick this up and shift it over there pick pick it up and put it …






Waiting flames, scarlet and vibrating yellow, licking tarmac
in the heat of expectation of nothing but shining signals
of intense intention, masks and raised flags declaratives 
of a desire for lives lived according to a genuine dialogue between 
necessity and desire, instead of under orders, rising &
flickering in variations, forever around the edges & anew
in every trembling eternal differential duration, rising &
singing in scarlet fire and shuffling across bright ground. 






Under sensitive fingertips, red-brown rust raised up from cold, 
smooth black paint of the post they’re clinging to, sky shining, 
damp, aching and obscure (and there again, closer and still distant, in the
gutter-puddle). A cold surface of skin lightly brushed on occasion by thin denim
registered at the far edges of a cramped daydream as a bus approaches; an
aching hollow chill at a deep core of need needling a perimeter of transition to
others and outside and that cushion of anger and warmth a metre or so away. 






The sky shivering and opening, an obscene flower 

inside, a 
choked, dark stinking of 
      these deep, dead red walls
and a dull ringing of work
      irremediable &
joymurdered 
      to prepare for
bonding in the shadows of 
      the lead-lamp,
it’s cold glare 

The sky shivering and opening, an obscene flower







Echoing dim long 
              walls
        rotting        a
surface chilled 
  with smashed
 air flowing 

clenching 
shoulders and releasing

torus of 
effort and heft

shattered jagged undertow
      damp cardboard
    split wine-red vinyl

last week a bloke was sacked
          just to show they can

tough illegal Russian grin






Arcs of love mapping betrayal by cultural arrogance 
held in the sinews 
of confused desire 
mistaking agency with passive sensations; 
a weird cannibalism, poisoning 
devouring befuddled predators,
      assuming omnipotent entitlement 
up against the vast blank void and the 
                immediate refusal of her 
awakening gaze.  






She can’t account for her reaction,

                 a drift of light gently settling across her back

and fingers clutching her upper arm,


        silver luminescence down her friend’s left cheekbone,

her gut clenching at the thought of walking through the door. 






They’re reeling beyond 
the 
                          shattering 
    fear of a 
          vicious wank-stain 
feeling 
    strong 
              alongside his craven horror 

               in the face of

simple not-him







I love

        all the 

     time and 

that 

        twist of a 

wrist 

             awakens 


   me 

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