Brian Marley and I were the two young hopefuls called in by Connie Pickard
in the early 1970s to help her run the Morden Tower when she'd a young
family and everyone else had buggered off. I was just starting Pig Press;
Brian was doing a number of one-off magazines and pamphlets from his
Laundering Room Press (I remember pamphlets by Elaine Randell and David
Chaloner, and a magazine called "Lycanthrope Quarterly"). During the 70s
his own work appeared in a number of slim volumes:

Sons and Daughters of the Lawnmower (Pig Press, 1974)
Dense Lens (with Asa Benveniste)(Trigram 1975)
Turbines (Many Press Broadside 1977)
Resurgam (Ceolfrith 1978)
Eight Poems to Photographs of Les Krims (Spectacular Diseases 1978)
and a bigger one:
Springtime in the Rockies (Trigram 1978)

Then he went to Essex University, did a degree in English and a PhD on
Lowell and to the best of my knowledge never wrote any more poetry. He
lives in Eighton Bank, just within sight of Gormley's Angel (aka the
Geordie Flasher) and writes short stories, some of which get published in.
e.g. Stand.

His poetry seemed to come out of a stable called early Raworth, infused
with some of the turns of Asa Benveniste (he was very close to Asa) and an
awareness of linguistic innovation before it was fashionable. I found /
find it funny, which is high praise where I come from, and enjoy the skill
which moves through it - a light touch and a refusal to overwork the
effects. I'm sorry it's dried up. What there is sounds as fresh today as
it did 20 years ago.

Here's one from Springtime in the Rockies:

LATENT MARIMBAS


A
Nothing is getting precisely the
same hospital treatment I'd retired to
after lunching on semesters
a portable trifle very holy in the
first waves of the earthquake

                               morbid?
the daylight hours are getting longer
with fringe benefits automatic colour
chart and three choices of menu

Cheese: Flaming
Chunks: Inflammable
Cherub: Enflamed

I would have noticed had the first khaki
been a success


B
Will Johann Deuton paint me in erotic oils?

(storage problems)

certainly there is room for the evening meal


C
A trio of lungs later we are asked to
massage the wrinkles of a canvas by Mercedes:

                 "DANTE & HIS POEM"

no food before an intestinal operation could
remould my flickering finger into plurality

-I repeat to you the time-honoured formula

____________________________________________

and here's one from Resurgam:

POTTED PALMS


Under wings bubbled the blood
secured by the dead-weight of commas
flightly as a laugh loosed
on the unsuspecting
                   those unaware
that poems cruise across
as a voice above the clamour
cutting new channels in the
waxy surface of the brain
_'I thrust my voice through
radio static snap blip'_
an impersonation of the tender
wind ruffling short hairs at
his neck
        the retina scoots (stop)
expecting miracles worked to
a thin line of perfection
flags race his skull into
a blind corner
              hazy sunsets (stop)
elevate beautious benediction
her waxed poetic output
saying so
         I plant my offside rear
onto the arrogant lip
of the crater
                     (sun burps
                               a
                      rainbow)


_________________________________________________
RC



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