February 2012
Chris Major, "Monk's Footwear – Bloody Burma"
Why ? Why ? Y Y ( ) (Y ) ( ) ( Y ) ( ) ( Y ) ( ) (Y )
home
This is home: you could be happy here. Spangled lights fill the hallway, a painted smile. From the outside it sounds like a party – high-pitched screams, music turned up way too high. Look around you, no-one’s laughing. Smoke crawls into their throats, everyone’s trying not to breathe and some succeed, lie sleeping. Clamouring hands reach out to nothing; erase the lights, the colours,...
from “Of You” by Norman MacCaig
(via earlyfrost:
There are fires to be suffered, the blaze of cruelty, the smoulder of inextinguishable longing, even the gentle candleflame of peace that burns too. I suffer them. I survive. I’m writing of you.
Improvements
I got the nostalgia for dereliction blues …Ed Pope The city was much as we had left it, still full of brightly coloured delicacies and old, tall houses, whose gloom increased with the distance. It was the roads that had changed, sticky with new tops and distinguished only by painted guide lines. We were soon lost, looking for the postbox...
underworld
A safe room. From here I can see the sky, violet before dawn, and the river, black, sucking up lamplight. Light from a neighbour’s window slips through the slatted blinds and stripes the kitchen floor behind me. Somebody coughs, and laughs in their sleep. The fridge sings and the plumbing yawns like a distant train. The river below. * …air and dust tug it...
John Friday
We-re not related in anyway, That’s my first surprise. Seeing him on the ward, the second: laying flat in a bed, a very tall man, going bald in a Middle Management way. Smiling at me one minute, and then ‘Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!’ ‘It’s not you,’ his weary wife promised, patting my hand, interested in the same family name because it might be a way to get...
promises, promises
i promise nothing is going to change unless of course, something happens out of my control… or if something better comes along… or if i have a gut feeling telling me otherwise… or if the weather changes direction… in retrospect, just walk away save us both time and energy i promise that is the best thing for everyone.
Casey Quinn
the fisherman's wife speaks
There’s not a silver dish left in all this town. The fish have vanished now, all boats sliding into scrap. We see closed shipyards, clanking empty chains on documentaries on TV. Trawlermen congregate outside the bookies casting about trying to net horses. The harbour’s edge crumbles into the sea; we are embarrassed, don’t walk there any more. Your father has fierce rows down at...
Bobby Parker, "spinner's end"
(fragments of disappointment, alienation, babbling and resolve)
There were no cakes in the tin, but it was a very pretty tin decorated with rainbows melting into the electric image of people laughing in their adult world… And it was all a con. We wanted something sweet, and the tin was so pretty; however we couldn’t know for certain that it was empty… just had to reach inside for...
blind w/o seeing
yesterday i complained about money about not having money enough money to live the life i want but then i don’t really know what that life would be at 44 i am still searching and i find comfort in knowing i will never find what i am looking for but then there are moments moments when clouds gather and dust turns to mud when the orange blossoms of the coral tree fall at my feet and begin to rot ...
lunchtime black
She sits only for an hour. But, there is no golden revelation at the bottom of a snatched paper cup. No answer between nervous bites from a wilted balsa wood sandwich. Not even a smile to the sun, as she beats away the swarm of office edicts, will set her free. Just a hope that she is not another face amongst this conjurors’ madness of souls. That alone may see her through.
Phil Lucas
the rain
When the rain began, people rushed out to gather as much as they could. It was real. All denominations. Money. Wealth beyond avarice. Then came the day it changed. It burst into flames and scorched their eager fingers, sticking like napalm. They ran for shelter into buildings that caught fire, into churches, into their cars. They fled the city; took refuge where they could. They...
HOMEFRONT
Better stay on your meds. Or get some. Otherwise how will you ignore the pile of hacked-off limbs on the hospital lawn, the amputees limping or crawling away, as disability permits, their sacrifice worse than forgotten – misremembered? You’ll end up scribbling on napkins and the last remaining walls, and the scribbles, presuming they’re discovered, will sound when pieced together like a suicide...
Vera Pavlova, If There Is Something to Desire, 9,...
(via airwalker:
9
I broke your heart. Now barefoot I tread on shards.
17
Why is the word yes so brief? It should be the longest, the hardest, so that you could not decide in an instant to say it, so that upon reflection you could stop in the middle of saying it.
18
—Sing me The Song of Songs. —Don’t know the words. —Then sing the notes. —Don’t know the notes. —Then simply hum. ...
Streets, Naomi Shihab Nye
(via kathleenjoy:
A man leaves the world and the streets he lived on grow a little shorter. One more window dark in this city, the figs on his branches will soften for birds. If we stand quietly enough evenings there grows a whole company of us standing quietly together. overhead loud grackles are claiming their trees and the sky which sews and sews, tirelessly sewing, drops her purple hem....
Let’s Imagine Each Room Is an Entire World
(via rabbit-light:
This one, for example, The anonymous drapes and spreads, Dust-streaked windows Overlooking the heating vents— Each of us amazed To find it holds the other; Haven’t we slow-danced To the big bands of the ’thirties As the city sirens Cried the blocks? In childhood it was enough To throw a blanket Over the cardtable And pull the flap Slowly aside to enter On hands and knees...
“Imperfect memory, please, stay, tell me more.”
– Michael Davis, from “Villanelle on a Line from Macbeth” (via the-final-sentence)
