Poetry
The following poems were all originally composed while I was at Chelsea School of Art in 1977. In keeping with the time, they were cut and pasted like much punk writing and fanzines. The theme of the collection is derived from a line in one of the poems and broadly invokes nature/nurture, the ‘fall’ and social observation. I used old National Geographic magazines for the lines of ready-made phrases as they had an inherent poetry in them already.
The original book entitled ‘Perpetual Fall’ was photocopied and bound into an edition of 50 around 1990 when I was living in central London. The endpapers were created from a rubber stamp made by a French graphics student at Camberwell Art School (Gerard something, I can’t remember). He carved an eraser with a lino-cutting tool into a little falling man to create the image and we then printed the image running in sequence across the page and turning it by 90° each time. Whilst I only just class them as poetry (and more accurately, throw away poetry) they do, looking back on them, have a kind of charm. My friend, the proper poet Hugo Williams, insisted they were poems, if a little submissive and encouraging as he always is, suggested that I should continue writing. Unfortunately, apart from one example written after 1990, I never did go back to composing but maybe I will one day... I’ve still got a box of cut up phrases hidden in the loft so maybe when I get round to that long awaited clearout, I’ll get the pritt stick out again.
Bing sings but Walt Disney
The
Sky is the safest roof
The
sweet earth
The
perfect pillow,
The
calm lake
A
Graceful mirror
a
thousand trees
a
beautiful Cathedral
the
Lush meadow
a
soft Rug
The
blazing sun
a
Golden lamp
a
sudden storm
Soothing Music
A
Foggy morning
a
Fairy Tale door
the
Shimmering cloud
a
fine blanket
a
Blooming Desert
a Dream Come True
Respect
Above
a Man-made Lake
Mirror image
in the
Watery Wonderland
a chimpanzee
Perches
Inquisitive
furious
To show how
earliest man
Challenged
Respect for every
living thing
Even
himself
Nuclear
In thunderous war at sea
Primitive Sauna Bakes Out Miseries
Like a desert mirage,
Doing battle with pain,
Like a dog shaking a bone
Learning to Read Messages in Stone
With fear and wonder,
Memory has fled
Tossing her skirt flirtatiously,
Purification by fire:
Time Falls Out of Focus
Land Changes Color Like a Chameleon
Vagrant beam of sunlight
Sings a Hopeless Tune,
Man May Have Set Off the Plague
Ephemeral footprint
Sacrificed to greed,
You are there,
Striding through a cloud-haunted sky
Frozen in a perpetual fall,
Junk
Above
Sunlight filters
from another world
Its
Fiery Cascade
Crowns
with nimble fingers
its own junkyard,
Nature
Left or Right
In this
New Map of
BRITAIN
glitter
has priority,
In shining indifference
to
blighted lives
and
Burned-out streets
Preplanned
prefabricated,
and
Vengeful
Like a cosmic rifle sight,
This
Man-made Milky Way
Built to fight
Yesterday’s small world
serves a purpose
To Illuminate
Sun-gilded poverty
All eyes and appetite,
Like
flame and moth
NF
A boy’s ambition fulfilled:
his
Choice of Language
Stylishly clad in painted
concrete
Every inch
Pure as mountain snow,
Tamed and tended
Rebuilt
moth-balled
his school, a torrid land:
of Oil-drum
clicking computers
Mobile homes
Beaming with pride
A Vow to
Kill a Way of Life
Banish Germs,
But not
Starched fronts
Vandal
Vandals’ Legacy: an English Word
Earthmovers
Bulldozers and scrapers
Machetes slash
Trees
Luscious fruits
green-carpeted stairs
Foraging Pigs
loot and burn
Bountiful assembly lines
Ferns
Forest
Courting boar
Raccoon
Ant
Walk the Fiery Path
All aquiver:
Befouled
the renewal of life
Whitewashed
their own future
Furniture for the Dead
Global riot
Afloat in pollution
the Sun
Like a shining promise,
Wide-eyed
and
Watchful
Shells
With a six-gun stare
the
Green Heart of
our changing earth,
Humming with life,
Man
New Tenant
Dusty cough
his Life cycle
Born in
Misty sunlit shallows
Is
Watching the watcher,
His crazy
Eager eyes
Dream of a different
Golden State
Transmission Pole
parking lot
pipeline
Beer-can
Ghost Town
Mobile home
highway
Dam
orphan
Amid a forest
of
busy
waving arms,
Waves of green
held captive
You know,
this
New World
Storm-born
will go
naturally
Gunfire
head and hand
can
Make It
but
That’s Unlikely
No, No
Only the Sun
can
bomb and strafe
nature
into twisted chaos
There’s glamour
-and Hope
in
that
sunny
global riot
Wakey, wakey
Here
Everyone who me?
is
an
Arrangement
of
stones
Mute
Rights
Suppressed
Droppings
Pose
a
Problem
Funds
Are
Scant
for
salvation’s
sake
Open
wide
your
Long-silent
cannons
then
S C R E A M
History lesson
Scenic Grandeur in Town’s Back Yard
Rusting Locomotives Stir Nostalgia
Like a bullet in a cocked pistol,
Human cargo inside,
Prelude to abduction?
Adam and Eve
Beware the
Tide of joy
in
courtship:
you see
Flaming Fields
Speed
the
Pace of Progress
But
Blazing fields
also
choke
Working or Drowning?
Struggle Across
an Up-and-down World
Like a Yo-Yo
Delicate balance of friendship:
Spinning
Whirling
into a trance,
The Author
cracked earth, barren rock,
Stripped of Walls,
smiles
Ooooeeee! Ooooeeee!
Pulse Rate Races
Fish swim in the wind
the river’s power
Has Few Instruments
Silt
mist,
stone
its own reward, work
Food for Man’s Spirit, captive
Rainbow
After calms, storms
the Shedding light
Cleaves the splattered clouds,
Sharpening the sun’s eye,
Into Bottled-up color
vivid hues,
Looking for a way out,
Poppy
fire
Wheatland
algae
damselfish
Whale
grape
From nowhere to nowhere,
a Liquid Rainbow
Hoards the light
at the end of the earth
Prepare to meet thy Maker
Intent on salvation,
Eyes bright as hope
the
Sun Rises
Slanting
a morning
Dash
of hurtling color,
Like waves of
attacking infantryman,
Red Terrain
and an Orange-pink Sky
All smiles,
Flower-crowned heroes,
gone mad,
Eyeing Shots in the air
The invisible
Battle dress
becomes visible
Armed and dangerous
Brownfield (composed 1993)
The
Magnet of open space
never rests
over there
Behind the
Dominoes of glass and steel
the parking lot
or old house
the gold-and-olive weed
Crowned Majesty
In a Steppng-stone
Kingdom
Stands Still flexing
her imperial muscles, Luxuriant
Her Regal figure in
an Island of shade
draws the wayfarer
envoy or
Furtive Immigrant
Pilgrim or
The Lawless pirate
Man
Knee-deep in June
Air visitors
From Distant Lands
Without charts or instruments
alight like Angels
Their Guide
the Predawn rising of stars
Like an
Echo of Exodus
Four-footed traffic
Advance on
The Promised Land,
One leap ahead of the
thirst for profit and pleasure
over here
in
Do-it-yourself housing,
Cramped as a monastic cell,
Big Ears Listen
for the
footfall of
A Puffing stranger
who
heads for home,
Boxlike
and
Modern
the
two worlds,
Twins by Geography Only
