There age(s) demand so much, Dave.
Lack & slack, losses all in the chaos?
Doug
On Oct 28, 2014, at 7:54 PM, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I first wrote this, in what passes for my head, twelve years ago, while
> confined to a hospital bed. It was published later, in an Australian based
> online mag, but today/ yesterday I had occasion to make some minor
> alterations to it, and remember a time when a violence to language that
> aped the horrors we monkeys inflict on each other was more, um, accepted.
> So there you are. I was in the dreaded Leicester Royal Infirmary when I
> dreamt this up first.
>
> *Dissatisfactions with Verse*
>
>
>
> 'White as a hospital, the lie began ....'
>
>
>
> I
>
>
>
> *This is an age of prose.*
>
>
>
> II
>
>
>
> The mountains have all been climbed.
>
> Speechworst evicted gods grudge and slurry
>
> Off into a flit loft of lost
>
> Snow flurry. From slow masked
>
> Breathmarks: plastic, oxygen.
>
>
>
> III
>
>
>
> *And rubble.*
>
>
>
> IV
>
>
>
> On the bed opposite, his head
>
> Almost loll-loll lolling
>
> Drops like a peach, pillowed
>
> On nothing but memory
>
> Like that portrait canvas what was it
>
> Twitch old Goya plus doctor plus.
>
> Who is emptied eyes swimming
>
> Pools looking out
>
> Drained beyond metaphor?
>
>
>
> V
>
>
>
> *This is an age of noise.*
>
>
>
> VI
>
>
>
> The pure noise, oh the colourless
>
> Delight, arrhythmia
>
> Shambling without shape. I believe
>
> In chance, it is fate;
>
> The wave's number's up. Look:
>
> I am a voice, collapsing. Rilke's
>
> Narrow angels' glob and puddle.
>
>
>
> VII
>
>
>
> *And scrabble.*
>
>
>
> VIII
>
>
>
> Without shape blur, form blah, purpose us,
>
> Point dit, off dot, off off, dat, ooze sqwoos.
>
>
> --
> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
> Tumblr: http://zantikus.tumblr.com/
> twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.com
>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
that we are only
as we find out we are
Charles Olson
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