Faber submission.pdf

8/9/2019 Faber submission.pdf

1/16

1

To Beauty

Oh, you, Beauty, surface, here,

your skin overgrowing objections

like a fine graphical user interface -

the radiance of a fruit machine.

Unerring. Flawless, vectorised sheen;

inviolate rhetoric, infinitely scalable;

pixel perfect, down to max pinch zoom

No jaggies. Unjemmyable. Hermetically gorgeous.

Illusionist of settlements,

your edifices rearing up before construction.

In time, in layers, ruining decay;

growth to mutilated perfection.

Touch me, oh-so-nearly Beauty!

Your verisimilitude puts me in disorder.

The console indicates that our lines cross,

but boundlessly we keep on, alone.


2/16

2

Affair 1: Telling it

You ripped off my crown of thorns

stripped me out of my sackcloth and ash,

kissed each pebble from my mouth,

blasted apart my noblesse oblige.

And you say, the drummer, hes hitting the skins,

shaking his fists as the crowd shouts. And you say

the soloists banging his head

as hes banging his foot on the stage.

And you are just so. Here.

A piston. Bare stripped. Fresh. Nude.

Dense as column and firm under hand,

and we high. So high. And so it is high time

to say what I want, sloughed right out of my skin;

be naked, outrageous in my desires,

unsheathed, keen as my thumb at your jaw.

And bone-flesh, so solid man, now I must tell it,

amtelling it: what I desire is you.


3/16

3

Affair 2: Talk about the Weather

Please dont get me all wet, babe.

Let us leave those clouds full plumped.

We wont dance their rain down; seed them

with our shot, orgiastic rockets.

Say well keep the Earth swept clean of tears,

(dusty dry-bone, baked mud)

so loves potential leaps kept fat

sluggard in the pod; small roots

feebly unfumbling the pavements underside;

In no wise threatening the cornerstones

of both of our houses

(for the most part, secure)

by which, I mean God! Look, Im not that sad

Yours - he aint too bad;

lets take a rain-check on this, love.


4/16

4

Ammonites

Unmuzzled words

from dear and kindred

blue our skin

like buck and grapeshot.

Bruises hatch:

indigo worms

venture, relishing

the marrow

Sluggishly,

we learn to tuck

Our gentle folds

beneath the horn -

spiral tight

push out our shells:

corporeal armour,

knees and skulls

serrated spines

ridged and coiled ,

the carotene

subsumes our love.

Still, deep inside

we throb against

the walls of self

with desperate pulse


5/16

5

Oh, sinking down

we sideways smite

our friends and lovers

as we plunge.

And only seeing

good when passed:

too late! Lain on

seabed graves.

Soon, buried under

mud of time

become at length

these snakestone charms.


6/16

6

His Anger

for Chris Bullock

The world is a soft sac

through which his anger flows:

sticky, warm,

in frail capillaries.

At windows, the rage face,

the scream face,

moves back when he looks up.

A bodily thing climbs on him

from the borderlines of shadows.

When he turns, this succubus does,

thrusting his spine with thirty-one thumbs.

Theyll hear it weigh in when the door slams

and the carpet wavers at each footfall,

searching his eyes for the red-black pulse

at the sides of blue irises.

No. It will not be looked at,

but vent, alarmingly, at boiling

point, scalding the expressions of those

he reckons caused it.


7/16

7

Cucamelon

The dispassionate privet has never known love like this;

not been gripped like these tendrils fondle

along stubby limbs, to hold his sheeny palms.

The fence, old wooden heart, creakily welcomes

the probing tip, at last feels lucky, being so deeply known,

explored, understood.

The flowerpot has been awaiting a broken one

to rely on him, cracks and all; nurses an earthen hope

in his rent soul, as the spirals trace his broken openings.


8/16

8

Husbandry

A flock of sheep

Clouds, spring lambs.

All meaningless.

Give me:

the breedits face,

its curve of horn and fall of hoof;

whose Day-glo mark it bears;

if this tup, neck-daubed daily,

has mounted, marked a ewe.

Read its ear tags to me,

drink grass breath for teeths integrity.

Copy that humanness of baa, or pitch of bleat.

I must know which separate one

the vet would minister

if it hobbles or falls ill

since, vaguely raised in woolly love,

not grasped enough,

my rage blossomed

to herd each beast.

To pen, sort, tag

to diagnose.

To feel beneath each fleece.

to show love like husbandry.


9/16

9

My Angel

Your plastic keyfob snapped

off. Its Perspex angel hula-hulaed

into the muck; she, given to keep

watch over me and instil hope

forever

in my heart.

She was never really my style,

this limp promise

too transparently

Californian. Overreliant on recently coined

interventionist

spiritual beings. In man-made materials!

When she fell, I thought losing her

would not cause much practical deficit.

Yet, now shes gone,

my angel, house keys slither

to the bottom of pockets and bags,

and the panic wells

when I cant find them.

They will probably show up,

I assure myself. Being less weighty;

harder to locate through fingertouch.

And so I domiss my angel

and would like to petition her return.

But you are also gone.

Or youre out there, somewhere,

silent messenger:

keeping the promise you made

to say goodbye.


10/16

10

Alzheimer's sufferer on the ward

A seahorse husk

drowning in shrouds:

hospital gowns.

Features float.

Each eyebrow

puffs vague in his sky.

Breath rushes in,

escapes once more

from his mouths cave.

Sometimes, up floats

a chicken joint shoulder

submerged by nurses.

Blue paper drapes

closed for the bed wash

Heavings. Gibberings.

Soft shushings: ,

"SORry Robert.

Darlin, I'm sorry."

Visiting hour.

"Bob, it's your wife,

Wendy, and Liz,

your daughter.

We're here, now,

we love you to bits."


11/16

11

A whimper?

Or a cough? Liz,

I think hes speaking.

His oxygen count is up, say

the improbable purple screen

orange, blue squiggles, digits.

so hell resurface - this time

floating at the tide's mercy

before his empty shell

loosens into the eternal blue.


12/16

12

Missing

Kaths man did not come back in '45,

and so she nannied Theo Peacey's kids.

And when, in 69, Tom Peacey died,

Kath stayed. A union of sorts: Kath washed

and cooked, and Theo owned the house, grew flowers;

sent clippings of the Telegraph to friends.

For forty years, they walked the dogs through fields...

Today, the curs have talkedlet slip, they smudge

the valley's page, a ginger-piebald dash.

Blast! says Kath, broad Sussex, knows theyve run

through Hole Wood, by the brook to Coggins Mill.

Barney! Jake! calls Theo, her treble cracked.

Heedless, Kath, shoots back They won ear you!

Then Mrs P., (with wounded fury): Kath!

you know I hate it when you snap at me!

The cowman bustles up his twilight song

HEyyHEyy ... HEyy... brrr... geddon...

a hint of hazard in his hazel stick

to steer his milk herd to the lower field.

And late after his holding gates shut firm,

they wait, arms folded on the lighted porch;

the copper beech is burnished by the dew,

as Kath and Theo call the dogs back home.

Her lights


13/16

13

When she died, they found love set in store,

like Christmas candles, high up on a shelf;

when it came down, their hands no longer kissed,

but, raising arms, saw what theyd always known

soft rituals of careby new, internal lamps:

a lemon-sugared sponge, leaf-burning days,

the nonsense gifts, and field-edge walks with dogs,

her gold-brown fingers sewing at a hem

These lanterns left for them to put about

at windows cracked by disappointments fist,

or tint drab work-worn walls; and lift those days

when morning came on like a cramp; and close

night eyes - crescent them with gold, as: Turn, your faces, loves,

from inevitable woe. And watch these wicks we lit together glow.


14/16

14

The Black Panther Plumb Drop

There was that time in the sixties

when your mother pulled Dad right down

onto the floor.

It was a Black Panther move she'd seen,

on footage of a Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh

demo:

someone grabs you from behind,

so, sink like a case-clock weight,

and kick their kneecaps, backwards, horse-wise.

"Why won't you be married to me -

properly married!?"

Dad had been screaming,

to his alarm, mostly,

after she had hosted

one of her poker nights

for the girls.

Looking into his red mouth,

she'd tasted metal, herself,

turned to go.

"I can't see you like this, Bob,"

she'd said. "I can't be with you

when you're like this."

The gap between his bruised intimacy

and her burning flight

proved too much.

He got her

in a bear hug,

tried to swing her.

And that's when they fell


15/16

15

but Mum sat on your father's toes,

he went "ow,"

and of course they saw themselves.

Fatal! Couldn't help but laugh.


16/16

16

Old Friend

Come, my dear

let us hold our faces to the traffic

invite its sodium beams to our eyes whites.

Turn your cheek brazenly toward the stream

of your faces next worst intention

where the light kernels in the saggings, mounds and hatches.

Dare the roads funereal parade

to make good on a pinched cheek, a crease, a crows foot

and on,

slake the faces of our once friends

with this worn fork

take it up and turn them over:

good manure

for next years fruit

then well tread onwards

turning this way and that

through this old town

and thumb its corners

like an loved compendium

Faber submission.pdf

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