I spoke. It was the end of the second world war.
Thus I spoke.
Let the lesson not begin.
Let the lesson continue from the camps.
Let the counting begin, let the milling begin, let the
great rendering down of the fat of the,
of the survivors continue, in the joy of the showers,
continue, of the victims, set out the moulds, there
at the outset was hope, hope was the outset, let the
making of soap and hope survive, and survive hope,
survive hope.
Let this not be the lesson,
that hat der Herder gesagt,
in the hundred-yard stare in the silence in the fat
silence, in this light and thinness of bones
in the skin, in this fat hope founded
found no hope in hope. You see, I spoke,
I spoke without raising my eyes
from the wall, and the wall and the wall and the fence,
were not taken dancing or music or love or death even
but hope, sagt der Herder, was dead, death, led to death.
Silence in that science, science of fat and hope,
where the thinness of soap, grausam,
grey gruesome things washing grey grey water
survive hope, thin gruel drips from the lips,
the lips, too, thin, giving order to the order:
start the lesson. At the end of the lesson
will be a test. You will pass the test,
you will sit down and pass it, and go on, you
will be the lesson and the test and the start
and the end.
You will text the test, you will
write the test, you will like the test.
I spoke to the rest. I made my request, saying
who shall I praise? and what hands upraise?
these are the tools, these are the teeth, and this is the
truth, this is the truth we shall not forget and lest
we forget it shall not be told, it shall not be told
what hands are these and what they have made. Forgive said the old
old poet old Ez. I talked to the rest, duly, burble burble they
said, so, burble burble said old Ez. And this was the test.
Let the lesson not begin but let the pall be lifted,
let the appalling not be shrouded or muffled
or clouded
one more moment by silence, let voices replace
the violence, and the violins play in silence,
lest the truth not be forgotten
may another beautiful saying not
be spoken and no more be
begotten. What hands
upraise...?
I spoke to the grey where the rest were standing
understanding not because of manners
may no more various things, vari-coloured, mottled
mixed be glorified,
Down tools, I said. Now, now you are free. The human
wall was grey and left the pink before the
bulldozer.
Understanding the wall, it rose in a wave, in a
fuck off sort of wave, waved me away
mixed together arms, legs, faeces though no more
faeces were left, no guts spilled because none were
neither nor hair either, bones in the thinness, in the thinnest
of soils, the soil that is like air
and the lesson went on into the air. Who shall I praise?
no human you
buried
because that is the truth. Gather then in the future of soils
in the future of ills, the test is that too.
Together you have waved me away. I spoke then to praise
the silence
and that you understood because it was
your skin I spoke of
no longer mixed or various
but unseeable
in the many pointed night, in the night nothing like
unanimous.
but there see you had raised
whatever you like to call it the measure of a
farm or camp where the humans are in exile, yes
there above the mess or yes more or less measuring the
rest
as if measuring the distance, with faces like sieves,
the thickness of a skin, still the silence couldn't get through
and you knew,
knew it in the shadows where shadows of living,
lived lives gathered
together gone
like a lividness
rubbed back to health
and coming back to yourself with a fuckoff sort of wave
what are these shadows I still see on my skin?
they are so various and fleeting, I must be overheating
water the earth
I spoke thus I spoke to the crust rolling, to the whole
hurtling through space and
thus speaking in this place
lost your trust. Disgrace
followed me. Until I saw, though I could easily
have missed it, that I might
turn and stare
turn to where I'd come from down all the long
years
and take its poor hand or the paw it offered me
to lead me back to whom as if home.
...
24 December 2022
for Christmas 2022
II.
in his image
listen to the deep
along the lines of
the face and darkness.
a spark, a sink
among the eggshells
outside it all was broken into pieces
and I said, the darkness is not total
the chaos is not fatal
or even original
although, what did Brian think?
it is genetic his favourite
drink his Boy George hat but
he was skinny a grenadine
a double, sinking in his beer like pisschrist,
shotglass wobbles to the bottom of the pint.
bi drunk and on her single bed he was having
a threesome with Tracey he came out and said
with Tracey and a friend, punk girlfriend
and he had to stop to take timeout
he said, two punks and a goth
he had come they had not
because of his one lung
use his inhaler have a cigarette
then go back in again because
he said he liked to watch,
Depth-charge, depth-charger Brian says
he said it so it rhymes with plays
it's not a competition to see if he could
break the record he set on
the last time dole day, Thursday's dole day
of how many he could drink
and more than once
he comes home to the flat bashed in
and spent the rent and
Tracey fixed him up, and he
liked women
but he said,
he was sad and had one lung:
how many can you
and can you afford to
the shot glass sinks to the bottom
of the pint glass
it goes it goes wobbly then goes
clink
softly too,
afterwards, after Brian's bashed in for
what he says it rhymes with lays
to the men at the bar
and jokes that pieces are always
falling off him always are and they
say fucking queer and Tony pulls him away
he was deaf in one ear.
too soft to hear.
I left him in the mall at Cashel Street
it was the eighties '83
badges clinking on his blazer the satin
lapels stained with dribbles or semen
always are I saw him
with his one leg
and crooked smile
walk a crooked mile
to see a sad friend that he had who
topped herself
so he says it rhymes with stays
and a man about a dog
and a man about a pea, Miranda said
who shrinks down to the size
of suicide
and is dead who
gets inside your head
inserts himself in your ear
who
is bent
who means it always did and stays there
down deeper than a vacuum cleaner
deeper down than vomit vomit that
they cannot clear
a human vacuum cleaner
Tracey now is picking at the carpet
pinching fluff between her fingers
finding coins
and applecores
behind the sofa
the flat
came down in a demo
don't look for it
I read the cantos in the turret
but that is not where it began
I began as we all do and I did not become
insufficient brothers sisters brothers
take my arms
take me outside no I'm not like we all do
going to be sick take
my hair need
something from me
along these lines and on the fourth day
he found inspiration
it came to him
as it was on
the first day of creation and
God said
Order up!
He thought
I do think the birds sing to me
piu piu piu piu
like owls the
ringneck doves
and a bird
sang Speak speak speak speak
as he passed
casting shadows on the deep
and as it was
as it was what he was thinking
at the time I think at the time
the present
passed over like clouds casting
shadows on the deep
why write when I can
speak ? why work
when I can sleep ?
so he dreamt he was a famous star
playing in a famous scene and
at the bar a minor bird called out
Mister where have you been?
he dreamt he was Julie Andrews
skiing with her groom
on the mountains of the moon
dreamt of sweeping wide and wider still
round the corners of a frozen hill
a snow-carpeted hill
he dreamt he was in Switzerland
He dreamt of sitting in the window
with a garden view and his love
who was a woman who
He stood up in and
saw into his soul
and how many needed nothing
and he dreamt so he dreamt
of the groom and the vacuum
of the scene and the actor
of the pea in his ear
of the man and the beer
of steps being taken
suspicions he was faking
how many thoughts are dreams ?
and how many dreams are
how many dreams are there
as if dreams are our mother
when she married memories
after sleeping with chaos
he dreamt of an eternal cafe table
and of waiting on it
when God said Order up!
but he was unable
how many dreams are memories
and how many thoughts are
how many thoughts are there?
his mother in the bath
her pubes all tangled in the water
a tattered butterfly
who he said to he thought
it's worth it
I think so too
and waited to
each shall be given
the deserving and the non
the believing and the non
god's gift he said as an actor
you're not too soft
for the extractor
Tracey was a human vacuum cleaner
no, not that way
Is the light on ?
Have the right steps been taken
is the vomit clear?
is there a man in your ear?
a man here and he says
it rhymes with pays
no, not that way
suspicions he was faking
were mistaken
he did not awaken god's gift
from the lucky and the un
forsaken and un
from father son and holy one
will be taken God's gift
he was not and from a man
in your rear depth-
charging your beer
the fizz
holy un
from the gearshift she sat on
to Brian with his hat on
Louie frothing at the mouth
one is
not enough
from the fizz of creation this
one man is not this man
was my brother he was
in arms taken
in his image as was
God's gift in his
from mother and daughter
to mother-daughter too
to unmother daughter
my daughter
how deep is
the water is it
in his image god's gift
too ?
11 March 2023
III.
The Supermarket
I have been to the supermarket
and I have seen men as old as boys
and the women it employs have smiled at me
and felt understood. For
I have been to the supermarket and she asks
for the third time, not a third
time, will you go. You weep and say, I cannot
for I must do my poetry — but all you have
all anyone need do, even me, all I have to do
is put the poem together until there are only pieces
What a different death ! — what different
arms legs nose eyes: What a different life
she led, did not long or could have led
mouth teeth breasts , while I'm leaning over —
my family all were very funny. There come days I cannot
even cure myself. Don't waste your time
looking out the rear window, checking the wing-mirror,
looking in the rearview mirror, when you could be
looking out the front but I was not writing poetry
my mind's saying , when you could be
when you could enjoy your mother's company her hand
constantly on the handbrake secretly, it's what
she wants she wants you not to see it most generously
failing to teach me how to drive my mother worried
not like other mothers I would be criminal or gay
but this but miss more than anything else. I have
been to the supermarket. Or ever felt understood.
Why bring this up now? she'd ask,
for a third time not the third time, when I told her
as if it couldn't wait now your father's dead he won't
be coming home and your father's friendships all are
ended, no one visits me now. Who would? the terrifying
to which the terrified do not surrender. Why bring
this up now? to feel ...? to smell the room?
The terrifying surrender of Jesus at his best moments
which all mothers are able to make, the
prestigious, pompous she said, mortifications of
literature, forgo, come to the provinces and be
self-condemned, the ridiculous posturing of Jesus at
his worst. In one he's a chasm a deep a tehom.
in the other he's just a poet. Do not touch me for I
will burn. Pity me for I have earned it. I have been
to the supermarket. The non-sequiturs are increasing
is a sign I have read, I've seen the handwriting but
not the hand writing. It was all a matter of life
or death after all, I was as fabulous as I thought
I was a piece of me is headed to the lab and someone
left the sex-toys in the middle of the road
in the middle of the road. I have been to the
supermarket. I have seen grown-ups
in pajamas buying bananas, and
hopeless fat young men in long short pants
waddling like zombie-ants, sylphs
with cellphones children
milfs in lulu-lemon
and I have lamented
For I have been at the super-
market
and I have lamented the imminent absence
of all familiarity
of anything we
might want or like
20 August 2024
