Steady the snow isolate
gorgeous through the blood
to see how far
how close we could come
North Street
I am given to think of
you there one house
and roofs over and over
most if not all
that does not claim to warm
the tender sirens through the blood
dry stone.
Somewhere north of here there is a Hill.
The moment
has been prepared for.
At the Creative Writing degree a constant mantra is "show, don't tell". Nobody likes a grass. But showing is also a form of snitching. Tell me about it.
Over the next however long I will post a series of writing prompts. You will follow them.
On the Writing Course style is everything. In 2009 I went to the Edinburgh Fringe with a group of poets. One day we went to a poetry show. A well respected magazine having some kind of showcase or competition. One of the organisers said the magazine refused poems that involved "shards of glass" on the basis of cliché. I found myself surprised. I never knew it would be this simple. One must avoid cliché.
This is one of my experiences. Try having one of your own.
The clarity of silent cold
all alone shapes hung distinct
without breath the sea even is
I imagine flat and voiceless
charm trembles its terror
that you do not and choose
to couple. One night there I
went to the stuck open
window with you in my hand light
flickered grotesque and you said why
have you brought me here?
So I took your head
outside into the air the city
glimmered as still water to the flat
of a hand and though an autumn
settled and we had missed the call
woken up so sad, surprised by
sadness too we were able to see
calm distinct the city light
colours breathing
that what it meant was I am unsure
this particular stillness
and inside its little cabin secret
histories,
just one moment just
a little hinge in the night to come that night
did fall, and our eyes
are rearranged…
…so the pattern, what we found here ghostlike
total calm may hold
sheer lovely, threat too. They are
non-distinct, here again
the night takes me to stare out
poised raise a little signal
mute unthreaded cold across
the city speaks and glimmer to the touch.
11th May 2022
after John James
to love the same records drinking
the shade of dress
life is wearing
it’s almost like this deliberate
vagueness, dreamlike in the detail
the fantasy when form breaks down
Rain across the valley blurs the air from my Hollingdean window
down the sparrows, cruel rain
settled: the language of contract.
Provided the rain stops
may I meet you in the hotel with
yellow borders, green shutters, lay
down at leisure, piss each other off.
25th May 2022
Death Note
after César Vallejo, William Rowe, Sean Bonney
& NH Prichard
i.
‘the corpse, ay! went on’ working
reanimation
refusal
out of the body
the soul got up
The Combatant. The Man. The Corpse.
‘what they have in common
is zero’. No names. The multiplication
describes the dead: ‘All the inhabitants
of the earth’,
what they have in common
ii.
Circular cutting device
chainlink. Mutual blur
there’s something there
walking by the certain graves stone
angel two children running ahead
vanish into silence
across the valley
the signs the mind a high pitched noise.
iii.
At the window the valley is cut
so much more so much
they cannot sleep
and who would
‘there is no outside’, ‘the voice
in the poem is not your friend’
the sound of children playing people
forcibly removed from the earth out
of this world we cannot fall
‘I want to be / pickled like
they picked enemies / alive / in the Wars of the Roses’.
Sparrow hope and bound to despair
love by the angel grieving.
iv.
‘The wrestlyng of this world axith a fall Heer is noon hoom
heer is but wildirnesse.’
and
and
and
‘though bowed the to hoom passed’
passage
passage
in your enchanted
bloodened sweat
lifted from the head
& heart plotted
from terminus
is not appointed
from the head
beatified friend,
harp-blood
of our found
& fondest
consonance
wound’s winnow...
is not appointed
from the head
