(SR) 4: Seeing Sally Cinnamon
SEEING SALLY CINNAMON
There’s two kinds of women
Those you write poems about and those you don’t
Jeffrey McDaniel
*******
SALLY’S SILKY KISS
What is more beautiful than Paris in the Spring?
More lovely than the thrill, dawn’s pretty petrels bring?
Dancing sedge-side, perchance, to sylvan seraph strings?
Perhaps… or sat among white faeries in a ring?
Deeper than hearts sublime, tender than all of this,
I, fade, & pass the the time ‘til Sally’s silky kiss.
Ah! Sally’s silky kiss, the touch still lingers long,
A surge of perfect bliss; of lips & teeth & tongue,
Feel Cytherea rise as spirit centers meet,
Diana in disguise, this life, how, seems so sweet,
Complete, & in my mind, behind the half-clos’d eye,
Flows heaven as I find forever passes by.
Tho’ moons & suns eclipse, tho’ flowers fragrant petal,
Beside Sal’s silky kiss, what else more beautiful?
*******
THITHER THE ABOVE
O knightly lights of heaven, star on star,
You never shone so beauteous, we are
The work, perhaps, of some astral being,
Or am I him, now I am the all-seeing
Acolyte of the lost art of the skies,
Painting Orion & the Geminis,
Musing upon those long, eternal days,
Soar shooting stars, trailblazing my amaze,
Mix’d with the phantom-llumin’d Milky Way
I saw, I swear, the Seraphim at play,
Dancing between the planetary kings;
Lord Jupiter & Saturn’s eerie rings –
As Venus beams her streaming dreams of love
Sweetheart come hither, thither the above.
*******
FOREPLAY
Humid waves of want,
She holds my hardening shaft,
Playful, erotic.
My tender tongue leaps
Thigh-to-thigh, skipping the spot,
“Lick it… suck it… NOW!”
Like flickering snakes
Each pleasure-tickle grips her,
Spasms of delight!
Her smooth back arches
About to come; she’s grasping,
Gasping and panting,
Then kundalini silence
Utters nothing but breathing
*******
AMORETTI
There is nothing like a smiling woman
Astride the throbbing member of her man,
When both of them – in panting unison –
Up-climbing to a symbiotic scream,
Bird-chorus of the physical conjoin
Surfing the florid energies between
Our first flesh-lock, ’til silence, satisfied.
While thrusting cunny fully pleasures both,
Her bosom bounces outwith all control,
& as she phallus rode my to full climax,
I left my spear within her fluid wound.
Thro’ clench & kiss we find a nest in each,
‘Til breathless woosiness of passion spent,
Endows us both with drowsy sweetness sound.
*******
PILLOW TALK
Now that the wildfires of passion are gone,
We lie, two pulwars tether’d into one,
Dreaming of sensuous stars & comets,
Whispering slow Petrarchean sonnets,
Pledging myself, ‘Cavalier Servente,’
Reciting the Vita Nuova of Dante
Fingertips stroking lips, nipples & thighs
“So beautiful…” she sighs… closing her eyes.
Thro’ draperies morn’s airy beamlets peep,
Lighting an angel’s drowsy naked sleep,
Led snuggl’d in the death-shroud of my arms
For she’s been kinda murder’d by my charms
For as our rite of lovers play’d its course,
Deep went the blows that sever’d her from force.
*******
LOVE’S DAWN
My love, as our love is spreading wider than the morning
Together, with waking day, in the wake of night
Let us settle in silent ecstasy
Observers of cities below Watching
From this high advantage Developing
On heath, up hill, Enveloping moments
As one For like a flight of swallows lift
On ocean winds, above the isles We touch
Soft spirits sail higher Eyes comitting
Pleasure beckons Mercurial kisses
We smile As kitten paws a mellow mouse
The lion roars inside these feral souls
& we are born again, the music of the morn
Accompanies these energies love’s mysteries supply
*******
ON COMING TOGETHER
I’ll never pass another night
As sweet as ours was yesterday,
When all the world was set aright
& Angels play.
Tingling, romancing, dancing tongues,
Went tender-twisting, while your eyes
Contentment shone, we heard the songs
The Seraphim devise.
When, like the running of a race,
We reach’d the rope, there souls unpent;
& stroking trembling thighs, your face
Show’d passion spent!
Aye, lass, we set the world aright
As Angels meant.
*******
SALLY LOVES CUSTARD
She lusted for my custard
As it dribbl’d down my chin,
She lusted for my custard
But she knew this was a sin!
She lusted for my custard,
She lick’d it with her tongue;
& as she lick’d the custard clean
She knew this lick was wrong.
‘My word, what are you doing!?” her
Cheeks ‘barras’d as she bluster’d?
‘I must apologize, kind sir,
I’d got all hot & fluster’d,
That moment, was a crazy blur,
I just had to have your custard!’
*******
TO SALLY: A LOVE-NOTE
Singing thy sonorous songs of triumph
Astonish’d deeply by thy vulva’s heat,
Your splendid ladylove astride my loin.
It seemed your long, perfect legs,
Simply went on up – that flaring hand!
Those long balletic, monkey-elegant fingers!
Little soft places,
I wish I was still with you,
I would kiss you slowly from toe up,
Getting to know how smooth your body is,
The memory of it goes thro’ me like brandy
One of my most tormenting thoughts,
Is that I didn’t suck & lick & nibble you
All night long… but tonight I will….
*******
TWO WOLVES
Let us scamper under summits
As the rivers thro’ them move,
Where all this love for you girl
‘Midst the mountains I shall prove.
Lets us skip along the lake-banks
Where the coupling salmons leap,
In the heat of highest summer
Lie two lovers sound asleep.
Let us waken with the moondrift
As she shingles thro’ the glen,
Energizing strings & songsmiths
For a fireside tale or ten,
Aye, lass, let us wander onwards,
Under mountains, once again.
*******
WEE SALLY
Wee Sally came to school one day, a bandage on her eye,
“What happened?” said her teacher, “Miss, a monster made me cry!”
“Don’t be silly, Sally!” said the teacher with a smile,
(The Universe grew heavy for that brooding juvenile),
“Monsters do not exist my child,” her teacher brusquely said,
& went on with the Spelling Bee, then History instead.
Wee Sally’s not at school today, her teacher won’t ask why,
For Sally would not say a word, too fearing, & too shy,
She felt a silly Sally saying Monsters do exist,
When condescending laughter all her honesty dismiss’d,
“Monsters do not exist my child,” that teacher brusquely said –
Last night; her daddy, mad & drunk, had batter’d mummy dead.
With little Sally Cinnamon head-weeping on my knee,
“Dont worry babe, just let it out, now I’m your family.”
*******
IMPERFECT LOVE
You’re not perfect, but I love your imperfections
I know you’re hot as fuck
But I love it when I’m taking a photo
& ask you to look hot
& you get all awkward with your beauty
& don’t look your best in the photo
I love the way we’ve been fucking all day
& your orgasm is lasting hours
& you say, ‘I can’t do it anymore, darling,’
& I’m left listening to your dream-breath
Thinking of fucking you, instead of fucking you
& I love that, & I love you –
You’re not perfect babe
But its your imperfections that I love.
*******
THE POETESS
Sally’s a first-rate poetess, the best I’ve ever read
& her main enthusiasm, at present, is me
She thinks my sonnets are as good as I think they are
& has accordingly despatch’d several sequanzas
To various publishers & pamphleteers
She left me this, the other day, in a fruit bowl;
Let me pleasure you like a Princess of Monaco,
Let me fuck you like a common Marseille whore
It’s amazing how we strike sparks
We work, walk about, repair each others’ writings
& when we’re fed up of that
We sit by the river & watch water voles
& when they come near, Sally
Goes almost unconscious with delight
*******
THE BEDROOM OPERA
Scene: A Double Room in the Priory Hotel, Ashby,Scunthorpe
Recativo
Him: I am glad we came to Scunthorpe,
I was only ever going to visit it once
& I’m glad that I did so with you.
Her: I know, I never, ever wanted to come here
Until I met you, it just never felt right.
Aria
Her: Sleep well, dear Damo, tenderly sleep,
My heart is running with spaniel bliss
Across this vast & precious beach of love.
Recativo
Her: What are you doing?
Him: I’m just nuzzling your neck
It doesn’t mean anything
Her: Don’t make me fuck you
Him: I want you to fuck me
Her: Put it in then
(SR) LANGUAGE OF BIRDS
THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS
Attraction isn’t something that only happens once, with one person. It’s part of what drives humans
Colleen Hoover
1: Spring
Interea longis fessos, erroribus artus
Deponens, jacui viridanti in fluminis ora
Murmure languidulo sopitus, et otia duxi,
Permulsus volucrum concentu auraque Favoni
Artur Rimbaud
*
Come listen lady-lovers to the Language of the Birds,
Hands slipping under covers to the magic of these words,
Unleash thy spinning fingers, let’s explore Calypso’s Cave,
When ecstasy must bring us ever closer, lord & slave.
*
I have sung a hundred sonnets in-between dull Sunday psalms,
For the girls in pretty bonnets in the fields about the farms,
Where, in the warmer seasons, I would lead them thro’ the corn,
To tease, with playful, reasons why our clothes should lay unworn!
*
As good girls giggle by me, kicking apples down the lane,
I’d whisper to them shyly, pressing flowers in a chain,
& charming them with sympathy, invite them thro’ the trees
To where they bend down, good to me, in woodlands on their knees.
*
On finishing their feast of me I’d lift a sticky chin,
Let kisses seek release in me, one look will guide us in;
As for the rest; release the chi, hands roving as before,
If standing, let your spangling panties dangle to the floor,
*
If riding, ye should pull aside & park amidst the pines,
If biding time before he comes, uncork the scented wines,
Dress in a little negligee, let’s dim that too-bright light,
There’s nothing like a lass at play to whet my appetite.
*
Lift up thy lighter fancies girls; a gorgeous gull white scene,
Wind-flashing snowdrift whips & swirls above the thirsted green,
See snow-drop heads & crocuses seep colours through the glade
& lily-lidded lotuses peep from a woodland shade.
*
Into the forest – lifeless, leafless – rushed the eastern breeze,
A rush of flushing springtime, herbage fluffs the blasted trees,
Down to a breast’s unbuttoning warm sunbeams glide in, gold,
Despite the old dames muttering, ‘tonight might still be cold.’
*
A full-lipp’d, long-lash’d redhead, on the roads down to Dalry,
Has flipp’d the faintest flashings from the corners of her eye,
‘What bird or beast doth patter by?’ Her thoughts could not concur,
‘Perhaps a pretty butterfly?’ I float my mind to her;
*
‘Please feel no fear, my pretty dear, pray put your milk-pails down,
I fain would never let ye pass me, walking into town,
Without quenching my bone-dry thirst upon thy milk so white,
Lass, ye shall be the very first to whet my appetite.’
*
I bent, & bow’d, div’d to her feet, suckling ten jiggling toes,
She put down those milk buckets, as up both her legs I rose
In nubile nibbling, lay she flat, her struggles paralyzed,
As ‘Stop!’ ‘Oh no!’ ‘Dinnae do that!’ her snuggles much disguis’d.
*
Lips passing by her special place, beyond her belly too,
Clamping upon those ample breasts, her handsome nipples drew
Into my mouth, insatiate dance, on blowing moisture cool,
I headed south to find the lode-stone of her lady-jewel.
*
My scouting hands went on ahead, one found her rustic mound,
Her paradise, her pubic bed, I rubb’d it round & round,
As if it were a tended ground of silk-grass, softly swaying,
While blended pleasure-scented sounds assented to my playing.
*
O cunnilingus, intense tickling, flip-flap lapping tongue,
Beflickering like candle flame, belicking fast & strong,
My swiftly-darting serpent tongue unleash’d pink alphabets
& sometimes strumm’d a Muslim-song flung from the minarets.
*
Both up & down, both fast & fully furious it roves,
Kissing virginal sunlit lips, searching for treasure troves,
I hit a spot, O special spot, her smooth back arch’d aloft,
‘Suck it,’ she almost begg’d to me, ‘suck it’ she whisper’d soft.
*
Erewhile I sucked I heard her sing, it was a joy to see
Her little quim all quivering essential ecstasy,
Slipping a sturdy finger in, gripping her thre’penny piece,
With gleeful pelvic beckoning her G-force did release.
*
I push’d on hard into that place, breath ruddering my own,
As swift rotations click in pace gush-waters flood the zone
From cunny upwards thrust uncoiling kundalini thread,
Mind disassembling, wet thighs trembling,earthquakes in her head.
*
From shaky pails thick droplets white splash flames across her waist,
Bright orbs of milky crystal, quite alluring to the taste,
‘At last my thirst is quench’d…‘ upjinking from her tensing knees,
Pull’d out… a wink, with one last drink went slinking thro’ the trees.
*
I left her in a panting pile, exhausted, eyelids tight,
Dreaming of shores romantic t’where she’d fly in faerie flight,
Catching her breath she patted down her petticoat, & tread
Back to her distant eiderdown, her boyfriend & their bed.
*
Upon the path she pass’d a lass, who, like a drunken bride
Taken to task, listen’d aghast; then ask’d, ‘where does he hide?’
Her fever pinn’d to open masts, she’ll share that man’s desire,
& was, that day, the second lass to fan my special fire.
*
These precious meetings soon became obsessional in me,
Investing into Heaven’s nests infectious energy
For, ‘things that mak a grown hen blush,’ shrill whispers in the kirk,
As to the woods more women rush those hours men trudge to work.
*
As one-by-one, footloose & free, dames skip back to their lives,
‘What changes have come over thee,’ hum husbands to their wives,
‘For ye seem very amorous, the most since ye turn’d bride,’
Of course it was her time with us that sent them satisfied.
—————————————-
2: Summer
I was only a poor poet, made for singing at her casement
As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other things
She walked so high above me, she appeared to my abasement,
In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings!
Elizabeth Barrett-Browning
*
As summer chimes enchorial, what chorus every morn
Of songbirds’ strung arboreal for Horus’ all reborn,
My wilder side ran rampant loose, so good to feel alive,
‘I should,’ I mused, ‘try & seduce’ the wives of Moniaive,
*
For they go out a-foraging when trees are leafy full;
‘Believe me when I say to thee thou art too beautiful,’
I’d purr to them cautiously keen, a cheek-stray’d hair to fix,
Whether they were a crisp sixteen or frisky fifty-six.
*
Round all the girls of Galloway a wicked rumour spread;
‘A man lives in the woods, they say, makes forest floors a bed,
& understands the secrets of the Birds which dwell above
& better still he speaks the words to rouse a woman’s love.’
*
Ours was a Xanadu that June, a ‘Cisco this July,
As August Harvest comes too soon, one half-mile from Dalry
I saw a pretty buxom lass with hair like knotted gold,
Which glimmer’d gladly as she pass’d into the woodland wold,
*
When startling her a moment, stepping out from breathing trees,
‘Relax,’ said I, ‘Sir, are ya he?’ ‘Perhaps…’ ‘Sir if ya please,
I beg ye to attend tae what,’ she purs’d her scarlet lips,
‘Has burst intae some harlet knot, some curse between mah hips.
*
I think about yers everywhere, about the things ye’ll dee
Tae me if ah could only share mah perfect fling wi’ ye,
Mah pussy is an aga-stove that’s ne’er bin left to cool,
Which I’ve ‘gan ardour grove-tae-grove tae find ye, like a fool!’
*
‘Perhaps,’ much flatter’d by her dream, ‘a little later dear,
First, let us sup these sweetly streaming hillside waters clear,
Then feast upon this tasty hare I’ve roasted with dry sticks,
I caught it in my woodland snare, I caught it with my tricks.’
*
As with that gaily-splendid lass I settl’d to a meal,
Sat in the ferly-scented grass, our conversations wheel;
Bones pick’d right clean we look’d up to the dappl’d canopy
Where bluebirds preen, & pluck’d a few red apple-lanterns free.
*
She chibb’d a bite, I watch’d her loose lips slip the flesh within,
Watch sev’ral little juice-drips dribble down her tilted chin,
Them melted in her cleavage, when compell’d to view the wedge,
I felt my loins’ thrust-leverage propel me from love’s ledge,
*
As senses tantric-touching climb like rivers in a spate,
Commences now the clutching time, two beings penetrate,
As, I, a tender kiss impart, planted on panting chest,
An inch or two above her heart, let Nature do the rest;
*
Brushing my hips her deft hand grips my cleft caduceus,
Between my lips her firm tongue slips wild, fluttering kisses,
‘What do you want… I want to please you,’ pleads she with a stare,
‘I only want,’ I whisper teasing, ‘just to be… down there.’
*
Haunching myself above her as the Moon tips oer the land,
She’s begging me to fuck her, tugging with an eager hand
My hard as rock, blood-swollen cock, pulsating smooth & red,
Fed in her aching labyrinth where liquid-silvers thread.
*
The Moon sent Myrtho’s shadows to the waters & the rocks
Beside the earthy meadows fill’d with dandelion clocks,
Then entering she gave a <GASP>, when with a fearful heave
Flesh lock’d in flesh, with tight’ning clasp our slim limbs interweave.
*
‘Look at the trees! Look at the trees!’ Her voice was rich like honey,
Its cadence willing me to please her choice, bewitching cunny,
Then spinning round she leaps on top, a spider with her prey,
Sliding her spike inside us… or I her… O God that’s Great!
*
Of all the images I see this is her matchless angle,
When gorgeously up over me breasts to my body dangle,
Them drifting down enchanting to my nipple-tickling teeth,
While fingers taut & slanting pat her lattice underneath.
*
For this is bliss, yes you & I, eternity is now,
When misty & auspicious skies, mysterious, endow
This moment with salacious light, thy vision grass-stalks frame,
Swaying to our lovemaking as when thunder moves thro’ flame.
*
Just like the waves which lap erewhile wee sailboats cruise the bay,
I pulse within almandine isle…. now turning her we lay
Two taut milk-ladles in the grass… then rise we, howling hounds,
Slapping her plump, abounding ass as mighty thigh-push pounds.
*
As she her conjugals betray’d (& bore she no remorse),
Like flagellants her flesh was flay’d, goug’d by the jaggy gorse,
She gave retort to shake the dead, or raise a husband’s e’en –
His wife, he thought, was making bread, but naewhere could be seen.
*
With gangly gang of angry guys he flung his search-array
Towards our clanging passion-cries a mile or two away,
For I, that night, had grown cocksure, with such doth instinct blunt,
Blown mesmerised by her alluring, soul-consuming cunt.
*
Ignoring vatic, stern-squawk’d cries from birds flown branch & leaf,
I lock’d her fast ‘twyx naked thighs, her troth of wedlock’s thief,
But just before oblivion’s forever shouts should flee,
Five gruff, rough, tough-toned scruffy men about us could we see.
*
Dark faces torchlight-flickering they dragg’d our lust apart,
With wife & husband bickering they tied us to a cart,
& dragg’d me off to Dumfries town, where in a cell I lay,
Alone… some flagging, sad-faced clown… the gossip of Galloway!
——————–
3: Autumn
Bref, mon esprit sans connaissance d’ame
Vivait alors sur la bouche a ma dame
Don’t se mourait le corps enamoure:
Et si la levre eut guere demoure
Contre la mienne, elle m’eut suce l’ame
En la baisant
Clement Marot
*
As I, condemn’d to live in sighs, by Burghers of Dumfries,
Did one day listen to the cries of south-migrating Geese,
I found the frumpy Jailor’s Wife (she’d had me in July),
Had cook’d for me some country knife inside a prime beef pie.
*
With this (how marvellous the ruse) her half-wit husband trick’d,
With that lard-fellow well asnooze that tight wee lock I pick’d,
Ghosting within her chamber-room I twist her crystal dial,
Oblivious to danger’s doom for it had been a while.
*
Screeching upon an iron chair the Jailor eas’d from sleep,
I kiss’d his wife, fled from the lair, thro’ open window leap,
Night-hush soon broken by a howl to wake the whole damn town,
‘That man-wolf has escaped!’ men scowl, ‘let’s hunt the bastard down.’
*
Curs chase me thirty miles or more all thro’ the furtive night,
Til, coming hard upon thy door, ‘tis time to set things right,
On answering I sense thy shock, too scared to rouse the home,
Eyes Meet, Our Singing Soul-Ship’s Dock, Lips-Lock & Tongue-Tips Roam.
*
‘Why come to me?’ ‘I want to see thee, darling, I love you!
No woman’s ever shone in me the starlight that ye do;
Come leave thy husband, mistress, come & leave him as he snores,‘
Rush’d… in a state of half undress… ye join me out of doors.
*
Hen, off we fled, ‘gan glen-to-glen, two partners, hand-in-hand,
Up to the lang Water of Ken, hung high above the land,
From comely fleece we made a fire, where in its homely light
Lines of my silver sonnets hop like robins thro’ the night.
*
‘Ye jewel of the diamond’s price, ye bloom of rose’s rank,
Thine everlasting eyes entice me off the pirate’s plank
Into the oceans of thy heart, for in that heart we dwell,
Within this heart my Heaven & outwith thy heart my Hell.
*
For there’s a certain alchemy when melodies fair merge,
I share with ye rare chemistry & wear it surge-on-surge,
I live in thee, ye lives in me, there’s lyrics in our lust,
Such mystery shall always be our music & our trust.
*
Let lips fall on thy gentlest O, them deftly there shall trace
Wee love hearts with a fearie flow, leave imprints soft, like lace,
Let lips all feather-wafting drift against thy breasts so pert
Let strapping hands hitch up & lift the hem-stich of thy skirt,
*
With firmer grasp thy knees imprised, & spun upon the heel,
Ye with a gasp shall realized these sonnetries are real!’
A love of wondrous poesy creeping into violet hearts,
Pressing Atlantis panties deep into thy private parts;
*
A phantasy of auld return’d… she ravished midst the ferns,
When thistles bit & nettles burn’d un-noticed as she yearns
For some strong buck to suck her neck… I did & shook yer soul,
As buckling knees flop to the deck where, coupling, ye did crawl
*
To claim my carmine cock’s release, ye kneeling midst the trees,
Spread feelings I would fain ne’er cease from licking, taste & tease,
Girl, let things go, feel more than owned; throat, mouth, full of my girth,
Happy to drink thine ease from drouth, a thirsty girdle’s worth.
*
Then, licencing my roving palms, ye swoon & let them go,
Before, afront, between thy charms… above, behind, below,
Eternally terrific, discombobulating beam,
Our harp of sensuality’s emasculating dream,
As up against a tree we stand a leaf falls on thy face,
I ease it off with soothing hand & smooth my movement’s pace,
When every time I heave my way into thy moist delights
Ye’ll moan up to the Milky Way’s sky-hoisted satellites.
*
I raise ye by thy slender waist, & with the other hand
Slow wind ye round, as now ye face the soaring, tawny land,
A rhythmical osmosis drew hot juices thro’ my loins
While sounds of hooves & horses grew that cursing cur conjoins.
*
Faces of handsome certitude, grace ceases to exist,
Releas’d from randsom’d servitude, cheek-cuddling as we kiss’d,
The angels play’d above us, perfum’d oxytocin clouds
Surrounds two perfect lovers, bound in one another’s shrouds.
O sheer breath-taking, femur-shaking, quaking rush of blood;
O leaf-vein snaking, fruit-route taking, breaking gush of flood!
A big, bold, beating, soul-completing, soar of awesome drums,
Roars loud as fleet-heel’d saints were meeting, plucking seraph-strums!
*
An integrated, satiated sense the storm was done,
As all about us swallows celebrate the flaming sun
There flows such passions easily as pours the open’d wine,
Immers’d in love-sent sanctity, content to know you’re mine,
*
My darling, let us cuddle tight, gaze safely in these eyes,
Watch rays of psilocybin light make lazars in the skies…’
All in a dash of quantum flash we two were two white swans
Soaring yon Solway’s pebbledash to lands of sandy bronze.
*
Up to wild snowstorms billowing about th’Atlantic stream,
We soar’d our way wind-willowing like twin wolves in a team,
As if searching for Seeta, sweetest of the East by far,
Til parakeets come greet us by the fleets of Tranquebar.
*
We follow them to Andaman, where on the Jolly Bouy
Let us land as man & woman, & abandon us to joy,
As we settle down together to a dinner, you & I,
Under calm, unbroken weather of a balmy, breathless sky,
————-
4: Denoument
The lady watched her lover – & that hour
Of Love’s, & Night’s, & Ocean’s solitude
O’erflowe’d her soul with their united power
Lord Byron
*
As fishermen bring back the catch & sunset reddens sky,
I lie beside thy lavish thatch, our vibes intensify,
Ye are an island to explore, thy valleys, peaks & wood
Entice my wanders more & more, arous’d my carnal blood,
*
My puckered lips did nip & suck, my tongue-tips tickled light,
I took the dip & slowly stuck two fingers up, & tight!
Still gorging an indulgent breast, still forging deep inside,
My thumb-club rubs thy nubbl’d nest, it cannot be denied;
*
As to the Scop-Owls perfect pump-like wuck-chug-chug I push,
My fingers find a secret stump-like nook… a geyser’s gush
With looks of love & lust let free, exquisite kisses please,
‘My love ye are so good to me,’ ye whistle to the breeze.
*
Sweetheart, ‘tis time to enter thee, tae bore thine armour’d dark,
An awesome <GASP> thy fingers grasp tae claw the palm-tree bark,
As all my astral love employs such esoteric touch,
At first ye cannae hold the joys, the motion feels too much.
As senses tantric-touching climb like rivers in a spate,
Commencing now the clutching time, two beings penetrate,
Plaese fuck me harder baby, Sally begs in ecstasy!’
‘Ten minutes be my pardon, babe, & then I’ll set thee free,
Til’ then my strokes stay soft, stay slow, there’ll be no sharp surprise,’
Stoking a warm orgasmic glow in flame-encinctured eyes,
The Ocean brings a cautious breeze, the Moon the still of night,
A coconut crashes thro’ trees & bird disturbs to flight.
*
‘Nine minutes…’ let us sample what it’s like to fly a kite,
Sat in the rhythm temple of our temporal delight,
Singing the Karma Sutra, Saraswathi on sitar,
‘My love you are my future, are my life-raft’s guiding star.’
*
‘Just eight more minutes…’ breathe I as my darling strokes maintain
All the sultriness of Shanghai, smooth as Dubai’s darkling plain,
For there is sweet perfection when erection firmly held,
Quintesscening connexion of the psychtropic meld.
*
On seven minutes pleasures surge, throbbing lip-bitingly,
Sliding the sex celestial, enmesh’d elatedly,
We are two Lovers natural, expressless, yon all speech,
Our Love the body beautiful on sempiternal beach.
*
‘Six minutes sweetheart, more for ya…’, as the moon shone on the land,
Thy cortex cornucopia regaled at my command,
Erewhile I softly stimulize thy spirit’s lissome dreams,
What lofty zephyrs phantasize of coming in the sunbeams!
*
‘Five minutes love…’ this thrust unties the keystone to unlock
Thy trust-exhaling orchid cries, her lilting for my cock
Cries acquiescence more & more, breath wishing I’d go faster,
“Patience!” I said, “your time will come, good woman I’m yer master.”
*
‘Four minutes…’ let us halt the hooves, we’ll watch the world stand still,
When looking at her body proves in she my lives fulfil,
‘Ye are so fucking sexy lass,’ as with a gentle creak
I push into thine underpass & nipples ‘gan to tweak.
*
‘Three minutes…’ fainting lambs at play, life’s frolicking connects us,
A soft, sensory holiday of the foxy senses,
On flexing back converg’d a spell, night’s freckling starry chart;
Ineffable love-surges swell… felicitous my heart!
*
‘Two minutes more…’ the penetrating melody fulfils
Of sweet syrinxes resonating praise… the cloudy grills
& sunrays spear exotic… all my smoothness snaps to jolts,
Forbidden & erotic, clapping swarthy thunder-bolts.
*
‘One minute dear,’ into thine ear I whisper’d, ‘to complete
This countdown sensual seconds steer,’ increasingly our beat,
Invokes seething Vesuvious, her lava set to blow,
Fiances fucking furious, our virtuoso flow!
*
O Liberations! Celebrations! Racers Riding Skies!
Acceleration-laced Sensations Splice Colliding Thighs!
Champagne Decanters Set to Pop! Bees Hop upon on a Rose!
‘Im Coming Babe, Don’t Stop, Don’t Stop,’ Urging my Further Blows,
*
Thy Breath Cascades! My Shakeress! My Bel imperia!
Blending Tremendous Hand Grenades! Compell’d Hysteria!
Explosion-Quaking Uterus! From Flexile Meteors,
Voluptuous & Unctuous… fled rabbits from the wars.
Inconscient in the gilded gaps twyx sex & ecstasy,
Lovegasming, our limbs collapse beside a shimm’ring sea,
Our randy & romantic pile, as frantic pantings fade,
Struck up the songbirds of these isles a sylver serenade.
We lay awhile… becalm’d… asleep… I rose without ye stirring,
I found a sea-shell round & deep, I fill’d it to yer purring,
Washing away yer sea-salt sweat ye sail’d a wistful sigh,
‘My love, I am not finish’d yet…’ ye whisper’d, ‘my, oh my…’
*
Ye sitting up, I slid behind, cupping a supple breast,
Letting my favour’d fingers find the moist & swollen crest
Of thy most tender labia; with searing, stealthy stroke,
I’ll have my lovely way wi’ yer, when with a slender poke
*
I push my fingers deep once more… surf shines upon our feet…
Transported to this lapping shore as alchemies complete;
Lass, let us cease this wooing song my cooing kisses seal,
Come here to me… come taste my tongue… try doing this for real!
(SR) 5: The Scotiad
THE SCOTIAD
When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake
We place our feet where they have never been
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?
Robert Bly
***********
PAISLEY
I’m cringing every time I see a proper Paisley tie,
I’d just popp’d ‘ungry into Greggs a hottish pie to buy
& chose a steak & kidney offer’d up for ninety pee,
I took the pie, she took the change, & said, “It’s ninety-three!”
I said, “Love, that’s false advertising,” stormin’ out the door,
But never mess wi’ Weegie Birds, they’re proper fuckin’ hard-core,
& leaping from her hum-drum she pursus me down the street,
Lookin’ as if an earthquake were shaking a slab of meat,
& panting now beside me squeez’d the pastie from my hands,
Smugging with satisfaction at her petty jobsworth’s stand
& turns her tail in triumph, as back to her shop she skips,
You coulda balanc’d ninety-three bridies on those fat hips,
Then looking down on what was left, my skin all bruis’d with mince,
I thought I’d catch the first train out – ain’t ever been back since!
***********
ARRAN ARRIVAL
Remember the moment Arran came real
Sat on a stone by a sunbathing seal
Perch’d on a pyramid, sea splash & splish
God, why dya put a dog’s head on a fish?
The eldest lay like lions oer the bay
The youngest lifts its heads & looks my way
Then shifted weight & slid into the sea
To settle on a shallow shelf near me
She knew I was a poet, I could tell,
Perhaps it was my solitary dell
Of silent thoughts, thro’ which I shall commune
Thro’ druid nature, with an ancient moon –
A sprig of scented streaming enters mind,
Future is real, the past a dream behind!
***********
GLEN ROSA
Following the bob of the deers’ heads guide
Scampering alane along the hillside
Not quite a goat, not even younger man
But, damn it, I shall do the best I can
As is the wont of jaunting sonneteer
Among these stones, where bones of mountaineer
Who died a lonely death, a broken pile,
Lies hidden in some crevice peristyle;
The smoothest rocks I’ve ever seen alain
Among the heather bells, all underneath
The poet peaks of Arran since I came
By strange force drawn, the one that governs fate
With gorse just yellow, heather yet to spate
Perch’d in a pure profundidty of thought
I feast upon this mansion for the eyes.
***********
GLEN SANNOX
With Gods of Arran I’ve come to commune,
A Druid of the Realm & of the Moon,
Is this Olympus? This the Delphic vale?
A mythomeme? A dream? A fairytale?
A Cuckoo Call the only sound I’ll hear
But for the murmor of the burnbrook clear
Those stones upon the slopes are older than
The Laws of Zion & the Fall of Man!
A glance behind to townships of the coast
Across the waves, a dozen miles at most,
Reminds me I am mired in my times
Of Crashing Dreams & Cash Machines & Crimes
So, let me gaze again upon Goat Fell
Uprising like a divine citadel!
***********
THE BOGUILLE
Took a pill for a hill and a headwind,
What a thrill when the voyager starts,
Limbs laden with bags like a Bedouin,
Full of bedding and biscuits and charts!
As hauling the hill slope demands a
Huge effort of pedalling legs,
Downhill all the way to Lochranza,
To the inn and it’s tasty old kegs,
& a pint, as I wait for the ferry,
With a salad of radish and ham,
Wash’d down with a wee glass of sherry,
Finish’d off with a single malt dram;
Setting off, then, I felt rather merry,
Flying drunk and I don’t give a damn.
***********
KINTYRE
Far from the shock & shockwaves that inspire
Testosterone, that rages as an ape
Set in a dirty cage – this is Kintyre
Of pristeen, tranquil harbours – here escape
The rituals of bedlam, & retire
From vistas concrete, & fermenting grape –
Far from the shock & shockwaves that inspire
Testosterone, cag’d like a dirty ape!
O’ergaze to the gorgeous isle of Arran,
Where the mountains are dwarfing Pirnmill,
& the beige & the browns are all barren,
& the sea is incredibly still,
Where lumbers a boat, flowing slowly,
Over scenery poetry-holy.
***********
ISLAY
There is a calm of Islay, where far flew
First flourishings of Christianic gloss,
Who else but God could bring a peace so true,
In whose Son’s honour stands Kildotan’s Cross?
As breezes drop, & the sea-spray pure, a
Spirit passes twyx Islay & Jura,
What wilderness inspires the wand’rers eye
To tackle those rough paps before I die?
Convinced in the magnificence of now,
Of living things, & seeing life, & how
Complexities evanish like a sprite;
I AM a poet! Let these vows renew
On Carn na Faire, watching the birthing night
Compel the stars to crown this drastic view!
***********
JURA
Upon the edge of the Atlantic Main,
I cycl’d up thro’ Jura in the rain,
Where, stopping, time-to-time, atop the coast,
To soak up views, I’ve feel alive the most,
For famous tayles beside the hearths here told,
Of ancyent chiefs & voyagers of old,
Fianna country of the staggish feasts,
& St Colomba of the ragged priests,
Dismounting, now, I see the silver drift,
Of fair Loch Tarbert’s lofty, vaprous lift,
As down a jagged trackway I descend,,
I sense this is a solid way to end,
My epic cycle, in the slimey light,
I pitch my tent & set a fire alight.
————
GLEN COE
Before Glen Coe’s ghostly & ghastly peaks,
Lost Merlin lochs of savage Rannoch Moor
Move the soul to tears… challenge to surmount
Invites with topaz slopes, we park the car,
Pop a wee pill & begin the ascent,
An arduous climb, at first with no fear
& then with no choice as danger fills the way,
Soaked deep to the bones, soon greeted by our aim,
O perfect precipice, perching beneath the clouds
We pause a fine moment, eyes keen to the skies,
My love, these are the days of our lives,
World-keltering vista… East… West… breathtaking
But rains closing in now, lets begin the descent,
We bare-chested hill warriors in the breeze.
***********
MEALL AN FHEADAIIN
The feather-flux of life is strange in change
Blown zephyr-lite on random, breezy gusts
Or are they more than sheer coincidence
For on the birthday of a lass I’ve loved
The first of hers I’d miss’d in all these years
I found myself alone at Altan Dhu
That treeless heap of heather, sheep & shore
With views to navigate the weary soul
Down wee mad roads to better harbours found
Where, squatting on the spot from far I felt,
Communion with my love-consumptive bride,
Then slipp’d a spot of silver perspective
Into my ain life’s ale, with rapid gusts,
How Sally blew the phantoms from my mind!
***********
SKYE
As Kestrels surf the mountain-fring’d spaces
Road twists between saturnine gargants,
Romantic mounds of monstrous magma,
Marvelous munros of aulden minstrel-song,
Lost in the moment, eyes keen to the skies,
Hard traveling unravels, sailing above us
Silver-fire mists of the sylvan alpine rise,
& beyond, entering the stunning scope
Of another planet, another Jupiter,
Sodden expanse of treeless waste,
But beautiful land, stupendous Cuillin hills,
Seats of Titans, where thrusting solar shafts
Induce startling notions of timelessness –
Here there is no time, only milky flowing waterfalls.
***********
SKYE BY NIGHT
The sun has set as steer & stereo
Accompany this mountain clansman’s land
Being a region ancyent eagles spann’d,
Some stoic slept, some capp’d with blocks of snow…
I found myself on the edge of civilization,
Not Tierra del Fuego or frozen Archangel,
But Portree, place to be, ‘metropolis’ of Skye,
Two thousand Highlanders sheep dip high,
The port seems far too quiet as we are drawn
To a clishmaclaving ceilidh at the Gathering Hall,
“Can we have a drink?” “I’m afraid ye cannae!”
Sally hands me the flyer; 28th annual
Isle of Skye Alcoholics Anonymous gathering –
Tonight’s theme… Tolerance… & the place is heaving.
***********
SHANGRI-LA
Eurasia, Eurasia, from tip to toe,
Men may wander thee forever in vain,
From the sensuous sierras of Spain,
To the towers of spangling Tokyo,
Men have stumbl’d thro’ Siberian snow,
To the jungles where Ganga parts plain
Enough to send a troubadour insane
For Shangri-La a myth most never know.
Yet here lie the shores of Arabia
& the fjords of the Skull-helms of old
Here an angel-throne’d high Himalaya
& a castle of Prince Leopold
For here be defining Eurasia,
Reminding us with weathers manifold.
***********
NORTHERN SUNSET
As times have swung again to strike the road,
My eldritch muses glean a glint of gold,
Perhaps a mile away, perhaps abroad,
Shall I be searching, still, when I am old?
How gorgeous is the red sun as she sits
Upon the haunch of Hoy, the Pentland Firth
As glass tonight, no epic pitch of wits,
Twyx elements girdling this happy earth.
A bannock moon hangs over John o’Groats,
& Dunnet Head us summons to a path
That leads down from this pinnacle of sorts,
Along the sea-bash’d coast to wylde Cape Wrath.
Where I shall seek out rosaries once more
Tomorrow, yon this dreich Duncansby bore.
(SR) THE GOLGOG OF GLEN ROSA
THE GOLGOG OF GLEN ROSA
Old Malakai pick’d up a knife
& stuck his ‘fucking boring wife,’
Then drove around & park’d the car,
& acted normal in a bar.
He drain’d his glass, he stepp’d outside,
The sea had wash’d up with the tide,
He thought at first to wade within
& cleanse his life of guilt & sin.
He threw, instead, his phone into
Those murky waters, then he drew
All of his wages from the bank,
For seven days just drank & drank.
His wife’s young brother call’d & call’d,
Persistence pains, excuses stall’d,
“I’m coming down tomorrow, man,”
Old Malakai conjur’d a plan;
He’d leave forever Milton Keynes;
A jumper, coat, a pair of jeans,
A t-shirt & a paperback,
Was all his life was, in a sack.
He caught a train to London Town,
The police search’d for him up & down,
He shaved his beard & wore a hat,
Then chang’d his name & found a flat.
He dared not work, nor too far go,
With money on a one-way flow,
It dwindl’d in a dire descent,
Until he could not pay the rent.
Without a hope, without a name,
The killer’s curse a face of fame,
So, off he wander’d to the wild
Of Scotland where the mountains piled.
He found a glen, he built a camp,
The summer short, the autumn damp,
The winter cold, spring barely better,
Wilder, windier & wetter.
Where he will wander all year round,
Still fidgety at every sound,
His hat is torn, his beard is black,
& sometimes, weird, along the track,
He shuffles past the tourists, who
Will look a bit like me & you,
You’ll know him by his lary look,
A monster in a scary book,
That stares at you without a wink,
& as you smell his dreadful stink,
Please, hurry past, no don’t engage,
Else loose that killer from his cage.
For killers kill until they’re caught,
He’ll clamp his hands around your throat
& squeeze until your breath is gone,
Another dead, another one
Has vanish’d in the forest slutch;
A Swede, a German, & a Dutch,
A Fifer from Dalgety Bay,
Don’t be the next one he can slay.
Yes, hurry past, avert your eyes,
For contact makes his fevers rise,
& never slouch a wee look back
For he’ll be crouching on the track,
Drooling at you with sneer’d intent,
A predator whose caught the scent,
Stood waiting for the trigger-glance,
No don’t look back, this is your chance!
Escape, escape, get out the glen,
Catch ferries back, go home & then
Old Malakai push from your mind,
You’ve left that bastard far behind;
Where, mentally he’s masticating
Flesh, & later masturbating,
Over bones where you & me
Might pass into posterity.
Aggravating, agitating,
Malakai stands salivating,
Thro’ the skull-bone of your head
Drills bulging eyes shot bloodshed red.
He’s waiting for your face to turn,
With eyes that bleed, with eyes that burn,
The pull is fierce, the urge is strong,
A thousand thoughts about us throng;
But don’t look back, what e’er you do,
I know you’re really wanting to,
He could be coming now, you think,
Is that his breath upon the brink?
Are those his feet that closer thud?
Are you about to bleed your blood
Within this glen of shallow graves,
Of screams & chases, rapes & caves,
Where Malakai is now Golgog,
The grunt of boar, the face of frog,
The deathless Arran Al-Sameri,
Tortur’d by eternal, dreary
Fate eternal outcasts share,
Like Buttadeus, unaware
Offended Heaven, for all time,
Condemns him to repeat his crime.
& tho’ the cops race oer the wave,
Not one has fac’d his hidden cave
Up on a slope, behind a stone,
That he’ll slide open when alone,
Or hide inside until they’ve pass’d
Police helicopters, as the last
Motions of rotor wane & fade,
He’ll wait until a certain shade
Has cloak the entranc’d, strength applied
Upon that stone, a long slow slide
Aside, then thrillingly emerg’d
A killer to more killing urg’d.
So… Syracuse to Zaragoza,
Never venture thro’ Glen Rosa,
Malakai seeks murders new,
He’s done his wife, now he’ll do you!
(SR) 6: The Lothiad
THE LOTHIAD
Enchanting. It will make a delightful summer capital when we invade Britain
Dr Joseph Goebells
*****
EAST BANK
I found myself alive off Easter Road,
A warm, spring sun lighting this little room
My long muse-lust has left me to afford.
Dust particles danced from the shadow-gloom,
Uprousing me to Reekie’s sweeping streets,
Some orphan up an open New Town flume.
As in me love of sonnetry repeats,
I find a spot three hundred steps away,
Where, from this catalyst, art unsecretes.
For, now, out in the bright spark of the day,
Between these tombs of Binnie, Baird & Burck,
I roam East Bank, with serendips at play,
Knowing this is a place where I could work,
For silent spaces are the makar’s kirk.
*****
SCOTTISH POETRY LIBRARY
As pleasure makes us read & reading makes us know
& knowing makes us sing, & singing makes us grow
‘Tis best to set in store the reliquary of song
A merry house of books which all can march among
To cherish & sustain a native heritage
As Homer heard the tales of Menalean rage
Down here on Crichton’s Close a nation’s soul is kept
The surge MacDiarmid surf’d, the dirges Dunbar wept
Thro’ Scotland’s love of art & Gulbenkian gift
An avalanche of books available to sift
Come pile a table high, as shelf-by-shelf we comb
To find that special verse, or take those verses home
If ever passing by, if under poesy’s spell,
Come pause & swoon & sigh where kindred spirits dwell!
*****
RABBIE BURNS
There is a certain knack to becoming an immortal;
As Orpheus’ heartbeat passes thro’ Pluto’s portal
& Burns arriv’d at Baxter‘s Close, by Lady Stair’s fine house,
Singing of reeking haggises & a wee tim’rous mouse,
When, even on that first mad day, he copp’d a‘gardy-loo,’
Went shit-caked, wand’ring city streets, without a bloody clue,
He knew if he could sing his songs the world was sure to hear,
So, as oor sweet Sordello fell on Johnnie Dowie’sbeer,
With enough space for a fiddle, him just like theArgo’s cox,
He beats enchaunting rhythm thro’ his native tides &rocks,
Eftsoons, at Mrs Carfrae’s door, his destiny wouldstand,
“Your little book of poetry the gossip of the land!”
That night the muse came calling as oor bardie’s pen address’d
Verses to fluff his new edition, both Edina-bless’d.
*****
EDINBURGH ZOO
When Noah’s Ark left two-by-two,
They’d hurry back in if they’d knew
They’d one day end up in a zoo
For all the fucking world to view;
The Wolverine, the Kangaroo,
The Lesser Spiral-Horn’d Kudu,
The Chimpanzees in pirate crew,
The Turacoo of violet hue,
The coarse-quill’d, stiff-claw’d, casque’d Emu,
Flies flocking to the Rhino poo,
The Pygmy Hippo, & what’s new
The Ocellated Turkey too!
I climb the walls, midst human herds,
An Alcatraz of Beasts & Birds!
*****
CRAMMOND
As I burst out of Costorphine Wood in times of rhymes uprising
A little disorientated from that madd’ning mazy hill
Below me, summer farmland, grand in greens & gold unfolding
Down to the Crammond foreshore with her island leaning leftwise
I wander’d with the cyclists, there, the sea-gulls & the dogwalkers
Lit by a misty sun, visible thro a mole’s opacous membrane
& felt a certain freedom beneath the soft calm of heaven
From the stench & detritus of dirty empires in the waters
Mankind is older than the dust of lost forgotten cities
& the monkeys & the dogs & the lizards we all once were
There is a wondrous common-ness to which all creation must answer
A pond of ancient memories, you can hear them in the ditties
Sung by blind bards, & in the Spring when deep down we remember
Being those plants gasping for life across thirsty, frozen tundra
Like a baby turning towards the milky breast of his mother!
*****
STOCKBRIDGE
When standing in Stockbridge the city staccato
Seems quietly distant, as streets of high quality
Are blest with a presence of sensible shoes,
Of ladies of leisure alluring luxurious,
& jolly old gentlemen, & joggers in jewels;
O! Wealth Karlsefinian! O! Pride Carthaginian!
That vision of Raeburn, his mission to build homes
Exclusive, expensive, elusive advantages,
Two gardens to tend to, a postcode of gold,
But built before parking & permits & penpushers,
The mad, modern nightmare the New Town now knows!
To buy such a mansion, price upwards two million
Or more for the glory of lordlier life,
All named after Raeburn’s amazing young wife!
*****
CALTON HILL
I am the Silver Rose,
& with these streets shall fuse,
To etch my gift in rhyme;
The scene provokes the Muse
To join me, for a time!
“THOU ART THE SILVER ROSE
LET US MEET IN THIS CITY
FLESH, BRICK, SKY & OCEAN,
HARMONIOUS, ETERNALLY, NOW!”
Auld Reekie flames my mind,
This heart-pulse of the realm,
In dragon’s furnace born!
With faeries at the helm
By Eldritch dream design’d!
*****
OVER LOTHIAN
We forage up volcanic Berwick Law,
Oer the kingdom of the Votadini,
From gorse-gold mount Lothian’s jewel shore
Curves round the Firth of Forth to Queensferry.
‘Neath rocks of prehistoric pimplerie,
Dunbar, East Linton, Haddington abide,
Fields skiff the sea, while to the other side
Roll lonely Lammermuirs where thought soars free.
& further still, beside the Fifer sea,
The silver streak of Portobello sands,
Leads on to Leith, then inland, shadowy,
Peeps Arthur’s Seat, winking at the Pentlands;
This is the length of Roman Lothian,
A second home my roaming soul hath won.
*****
COUNTRY LIVING
My cities, I leave thee, gritty & grime,
This budding muse prepares the spirit’s ark,
Where bird-migration marks the pass of time
What was lifestyle now grey & stranger-stark.
Like Guernica or Oranges-sur-Seine,
Once vivid colours growing daily dark.
Occasionally owend my thoughts to when
Wordsworth had found a stool to ease his mind
From crowded sensibilities of men
I, too, hope happy harbourage to find
Beside a world of green, where piny glade
By Vallambrosan cardinal design’d
For as Iona’s church from wattles made
The forum for a forest made fair trade.
*****
CARFRAE
When the broad haars uprise t’ward the breadth of the skies,
Looking down from the crown Lammermuirs,
Unseal’d from the mist, like the steel of a fist,
Little Carfrae, like love, reappears!
With the air floating still let your stare catch a hill
& the soft heather thatch of the moors,
Let the clarion wild stroke your soul like a child
As its calling us all out of doors.
Wherever you are, whether near, whether far,
Come & while with a poet today,
Take a drive, make a hike, climb a mile on your bike,
To the magical isle of Carfrae.
All alone, set apart, in the glorious heart
Of East Lothian’s wheat Beaujolais.
*****
A NEW HOME
This land so very different from the map,
Whose shades of green & grey fail to divulge
The beauty of this place I now call home;
“I now call home…” these words unreal to hear,
How many times I sing them to my mind,
If this is so, I must now be prepar’d
For all eventualities life throws,
But balanc’d in my years let fear subside,
My body following its shining soul,
For love has led me safely here thus far,
Where now I feel a Caledonian,
Sent here by love, by love deposited,
Sensing a while of work, so to remain,
As in this place, & time, three things converge –
An art, an artist & his ain heart’s surge.
*****
PRESSMENNAN
Feel the feeling on the edge of summer,
Hours before your first foggybummer,
April, perhaps, or March on a good year,
Out on the tracks with the shy, pregnant deer,
Wearing the hat that you’ve worn all Winter,
Skimming thro’ Plath or the plays of Pinter,
Warming each pace in your courdoroy clothes,
As petals do abud before the rose.
As all at once we lessen from our haste,
& cardigans are tied about the waste,
We feel a spirit stroke the naked arm
A zephyr-waft, so soft, so cool, so calm,
So, this is Serendip’s pastoral muse,
Far from life’s little fish-hooks, & it’s news.
*****
HEATHER LODGE
There was a time I felt compell’d to race
Round London at a hundred miles an hour,
Hopping twixt train & bus; but now my pace
To footstep slows,
For living far away
I notice, now, the needlessness of car
Walking six miles, both to & from Dunbar.
With rent I’ll pay upon my country pile,
I could afford, there, just about one room!
Blessing my zephyr with a certain smile,
Erewhile she blows
Above, the clouds grow gloom…
As, yesterday, I London would adore
Today I wake to walk the Lothian shore.
*****
SUMMER VISTA
Upon the steep slopes of Spott Dod
I sat, observing as a God
Surveys Creation all below,
Thro’ fields reflecting sommerglow
The London train creeps past a car,
The wavy mane beside Dunbar
Grew angel blue, no northern sea
In glassy, grey conformity,
But more an Adriatic Bay,
Ecstatic with this cloudless day
& I, above it, with the sheep,
Some rustic Croat half asleep,
Dreaming where men have rarely trod
Upon the steep slopes of Spott Dod.
(SR) JUNKIE FUCKS
ON
the
JUNKIE
FUCKS
of
LOWER LEITH WALK
He tried to tear the horror from himself,
Searching in the sockets of his eyes with needles
Till they burst blood
The Phoenician Woman
———-
Strophe
There’s a Junkie Fuck
Everywhere you look
: in Leith
Great Junkie Street
Five-minutes-to-midnight
Zombie-crowded cash-machines
Kids like, ‘Where’s-my-crack-pipe?’ Kinnon
Grinnin’ into school
Thinkin’ he was cool
‘I’m never injecting,’ he blusters upsetly
Blazin’ ’bout his Best Friend’s funeral:
At the Wake… to ease his grief… shoots up for first time!
His crack-whore ‘Wudya,’ works Leith Links’s edges
A posh-painted picture pick’d up by drunk dockers
While her daughter chews straws at McDonalds.
There’s a Smackie Kunt
Always on the hunt
: in Leith
********
Antistrophe
There’s a Junkie Worm
Every corner turn’d
: in Leith
The Skag is a slippery, shrieking Beast
Cunning as Fox, strong as Lion
Foul as farting Pig
Don’t listen to what they say, but how they say it,
Bullshit Defence Mechanism takes control
Insidious serpent contorting thought
How the hell can ya call it glamorous?
When glamping means begging up the North Bridge
Contemplating suicide in torn, soggy shoes
Viledom’s finest scourge Leith Walk
Piping, ‘We are young… We can handle it…’
‘…We could drop it just like that.’
There’s a Bag-Head Prick
Itching itself sick
: in Leith
********
Epode
There’s a Junkie Fool
Shuffling past yer school
: in Leith
I was twenty-one once,
Busking down Bournemouth
Boozing wi’ beggars
I’d follow’d ‘em into a nappy-dirty yard
Watching ‘em cook up their hard-earned stuff
& said, ‘I’ll have a go,’ in all innocence
‘You don’t wanna try,’ said Feathers,
‘Do I not?… alright…’ three days later
I found him overdosing in his tent
Never babysit a Smack-Head!
If you show signs of weakness they will take
& scrounge & lie & steal & take & scrounge & take &…
There’s a Junkie Shmuck
Lonely, Soul-less, Stuck
: in Leith
(SR) 7: Whittinghame
WHITTINGHAME
Somewhere out there is another little freak who will love us
& understand us and kiss our three heads and make it all better
Carrie Bradshaw
********
WHAT BLEEDS FOR FIVE DAYS & DOES NOT DIE?
She moans about her hormones every second week in four
Goes clattering the cutlery & slamming every door
Like when we yearn’d tranquiltiy, then found a paradise
But she was full of PMT & said, “it’s not THAT nice,”
Yet women are man’s reason, so when swings the pendulum
Put on your safety helmet for the fireworks to come –
She sulks & yells, her belly swells, her paranoia grows,
Now fear the snarling werewolf where you once could smell a rose,
Cos’ women synch up to the moon, thats just the way things are,
So never say “irrational,” or let her drive the car,
& if you feel frustrated in a very vocal war
Letting your lady win will just infuriate her more
But when the fun is over, son, there’s one thing you should do –
Embrace your woman, kiss her lips & whisper, “I love you!”
********
FADING LOVE
Somewhere between August & September
There was a change in Sal, she could not tell
Exactly when – a blend of alter’d vibes
& distances, where once two souls clamp’d shut;
By Halloween her love seem’d lost at sea,
The way she insisted Elsie always
Should bring her boyfriends over for dinner;
Intellectual jousting made her cringe
& who, these days, cares for Proust anyway?
Hearing the thump of jackboots on the stairs,
My heart beat fast, her temper broadside torn,
She thrust herself into the washing-up,
Crazy, confus’d, attempting to diffuse
This powderkeg beneath her paradise
Cursing, once more, her love too easy won!
********
RECRIMINATIONS
A letter lies unread on the table
Regret, so bitter-sweet in spite of fate
Waits in those inky sylphs besmudg’d by tears;
She turns her cheeks to wafting solar shards,
Screams, “No!.. No!” I will not read the letter,
Damo’s a pompous ass – no noble prince –
The way he was caressing Elsie’s hand
Indicated signs of secret kisses!
‘Our hearts began their journey beating whole
Then destiny’s perfections race away
‘Til flung upon the muck-heap with the rest…’
A memory of ours hangs off the wall
That was our happy place, but in your eyes,
When I see them mov’d on, these tears bleed hope.
********
MOODY BLUES
The spirit of romance is with us,
A man a woman & a dog,
Listening to sea-girt, violin concertos.
Weather turns unsettl’d on waters
Globs of gallivanting gulls, dancing waves
& this single black eagle…
Senses shatter’d by a drunken Seattleite,
I mean… Sally + PMT + alcohol
Equals hell-sent banshee hell-bent on fury.
Relationship psychobabble pierces nirvana
“We could have stay’d at home to have a row!” say I,
But she keeps on scowling.
I slink to the tent, leave her staring out to sea,
A fisher-widow searching for her long-drown’d love.
********
LOVE’S REPOSE
Ah Sally! Sweet Sally Cinnamon, hear!
Even now, after all that we’ve gone thro’,
From halycon highs to those awful lows,
The fact we chose to share together
Repose in Scotia’s fertile land; where fruit
Grows wild; remember gooseberries were found,
Where Falcons vie with Crows to claim the sky,
Where vista-on-vista splendidly glows
Before eyes remember them when they close,
Where Whittinghame Water flows carefree,
Free as these souls of ours; suppose they met
When they were sleeping, as windy fate blows
Life grows, so rose us from dim city streets
Like poesy from prose, come cherish this truth.
********
THE END
Woman is sacred: the woman one loves is holy
But love is only like water
Graspless when a lovers’ palm untightens
Chit-chat serious, bond about to snap
Altho’ our great, poetic love burns bright
Like Aberlard & Heliose, destin’d to be apart
It is then, as fades the sun
To the sounds of Scottish fiddle on my little radio
I am calmly dump’d
No more gladitorial slanging matches
No more hurt, no more blame, no more pain
Sally retires early,
Leaving me to write these valedictions
Thro’ long midwinter’s night
********
PINING
When I met you I caught a falling star,
Your heart it was, that whisper’d unto me,
‘I love you,’ with a tempest-sigh of breath,
This breath is gone now, like a melt of snow
That make no noise, your silence ends our joys,
For we are ever absent from the sphere
That is the intersuredness of love,
Knock upon its memorial entrance,
I’ll never get back in, my own profess
Of love like gold to airy thinness beat;
What sadness has descended on my soul!
The firmness of my being now in thrall
To some dark watcher, hover’d over days
That stretch on haunted where I’ll weep once more…
********
DANTEAN EXILE
If Whittinghame was a modern Florence
Half-parted by its very own Arno
Its little church basilican duomo
& Heather Lodge a hub of renaissance
Then, am I victim, too, of vendetta,
As the assassins knife on Darnley drew,
Curs’d by hot schemes hatched neath an ancytent yew
& lawful as a long, landlord’s letter?
& now, as Dante rode, my ways must roam
& leave behind those two loves of my life
A paradise that I could call a home
& all the soul’s completeness of a wife
Yet as I sense that poet in exile
I sense some great endeavour, then I smile!
********
LOVE’S TRUTH
As chemistry glues people together,
However great or toxic love may be,
Relinquishing the flight of the feather,
Let us ride this stormy weather, you & me.
As like that lone fuggazi on the sea
Which saw poor Shelley’s galley torn in two,
Its pilot haunted by the memory,
Oft fled in fretful thought, like me & you,
To troubl’d shells our turtle minds withdrew,
Where I observ’d thee when you were withdrawn,
Searching your soul for something bright & new
& with that search a chance to be reborn!
If that is so, my love, I shall depart,
& rest these bitter testings of this heart.
********
LEAVING EAST LOTHIAN
I came, I saw, I ceilidh’d with the Scots,
Veni… vedi… a private victory,
My lady swooning to wild lily-knots,
Oor homestead settl’d in serenity,
Soaking in Scottish sensibility,
Itching beyond mere whistle binkie bards,
I strove for all that’s good in sonnetrie,
Woodwound, museyon the New Town boulevards,
Seertitle shining thro’ the teller’s cards,
What Lothiads dolphin’d across the stage,
Sturdy as Napoleonic grognards,
Peerless as pioneers upon the page,
Another host of sonnets safe in store,
From Rydal Mounts must makars take their tour.
********
AMABANDON
My love, as with the sea & the waves & all the oceans,
Once more the tides of time have brought you to my side,
From where I now drift sadly,
Floating upon the endless waters of stretching time,
Pausing to reflect on the light of your face,
Half-a-light now, then brighter than the evening star.
So, let us set adrift for islands of soft exstasi,
Two fine liners fluttering the ocean blue,
Until the occasion we next dock in the same port,
Some shanty of Mauritius or the harbors of New York,
Bobbing together in unison, a special shared tranquility,
& our essences commingling on many a fine night upstanding!
So, until time & life’s pathways converge us once again
Remember kindly always… you are forever in my heart!
********
LEAVING LOTHIAN
I came, I saw, I ceilidh’d with the Scots,
Veni… Vedi… a private victory,
My lady swooning to wild lily-knots,
Oor homestead settl’d in serenity,
Soaking in Scottish sensibility,
Itching beyond mere whistle binkie bards,
I strove for all that’s good in sonnetrie,
Woodwound, beyond the New Town boulevards,
Seertitle shining thro’ the teller’s cards,
What Scotiads dolphin’d across the stage,
Sturdy as Napoleonic grognards,
Peerless as pioneers upon the page,
As with a host of sonnets safe in store,
From Rydal Mounts must makars take their tour.
********
ODE TO SCOTLAND
Well I’ve been here for years, but its time to do one,
I’ve sank a load of beers & I thank ye for the fun,
Spinnin’ thro hootenannies with a bonnie halean howl,
Purrin’ with pretty pussies on an m-cat prowl,
I’ve driven round Loch Lomond, walk’d five hundred miles yon Tain,
Gone roamin’ in the gloamin’ wrapped in midge-proof cellophane,
I’ve organis’d four Jock Stocks with a need to make folk dance,
& I’ve scamper’d up yer Cuillin rocks as mountain mists advance,
I’ve mused thro’ an Ediniad of sonnets, Reekie round,
The best nights that I’d ever have with best friends that I’d found,
But something in the poets’ souls must sail their craft abroad,
& leave behind the rock ‘n’ roll – when lightening the load
Gone furrowing down foreign streams, forgetting never, they,
Those places full of god-sent dreams, like Garvald ‘neath the hay.
********
DEPARTURES
As planets in their stolen orbits sway
Enraptured by the sun’s eternal day
So, too, must move the motions of the heart
& lovers from each other cleave apart,
So I shall go, some Rama far from Seeta,
Or then again, maybe I’m yet to meet her…
As Autumn’s vegetation makes decay,
Down Goldenacre-Warriston’s pathway,
I see the sun rise up on Arthur’s Seat
& silhouette the city’s spinal street;
This is, I think, a hint of things to come,
Like Sufi’s singing Sindhi to a drum.
Thus poet-prospects loading up with ore,
These feet shift forth to wherefore, & what shore?
(SR) L’Intermidi I: THE SAGA OF THE YOUNG KURT COBAIN – In Utero
L’Intermidi I
THE SAGA OF THE YOUNG KURT COBAIN: In Utero
For Matthew Waddington
They laugh at me because I’m different;
I laugh at them because they’re all the same
There is a small percentage of the population who were BORN with the ability to detect injustice. They have tendencies to question injustice & to look for answers in ways consider’d by their oppressors standards to be abnormal. They have tendencies & talents in the sense that they know from an early age that thy have the gift to challenge what is expected of their future. These kids are usually hyperactive, uncontrollable brats who never know when to quit because they’re so wrapped up in whatever theyre trying to prove, that they eventually offend someone, not meaning too of course. This is good.
Kurt Cobain
I want a hero, or an ‘anti’ one
Some mortal who could change the world with song
& moving chords, a maestro, paragon,
Whose melodies & lyrics leap along
Who’ll make us dance & think, perchance upon
A higher plane of consciousness, among
The sibilant hauteurs of humankind,
Whom, hissing, never listen – Nevermind!
Most epic poets plunge ‘in media res,’
That is ‘the middle’ for those not winning
School Latin prizes, (yes, res rhymes with ease)
But not today, with a poem spinning
On the young Kurt Cobain, if you please
I’ll begin his tale at the beginning,
For round our childhood deeds & people swarm
Which, piece-by-piece, our grown-up fabrics form.
T’would better be if humans flew like geese
Migrating come the cold & heartless rain,
Alas, when Aberdeen’s timber-mills cease
Production, all them laid-off just remain,
Devoid of great ambition, find release
In drinking, some brief respite to obtain
From drudgery, like dancing with single mums –
One day Chuck Frandenberg packs up his drums…
… & sets them up to play a dinner dance
His young ‘Beachcombers’ band the best around
Thro’ Louie Louie’s Cuban influence,
& other hits, harness a varnish’d sound –
Chuck’s sister, Wendy, took a sly half-glance,
At Don Cobain, a flash of heaven found
His eyes on her – a dream, a blur, a bed!
In Couer d’Alene, down Idaho, soon wed.
From copulation comes the miracle
Of this existence, in consistent form
If singeth Fate a song most lyrical,
The Angels bring us babies to be born –
& so, lets go, Gray’s Harbours Hospital
Already beaten-brow’d by crown of thorn
Out of a bloody uterus, thro’ hurt,
A boy for all of us, a boy call’d Kurt.
His life shall form the substance of this song
Whose mould ordain’d as Ottava Rima
In cantos of seventy stanzas long
Projected by poetical dreamer
Well, me that is, whose need to write surfs strong
Impulses, deep as the first kalima,
Reviving most poetic lives on earth
In finest lines disconfining rebirth.
A boy was born in windy Aberdeen
Among the forests, by the ceaseless sea,
Of dreary rain, of sunshine rarely seen
Of difficulties & delinquency,
Crack-rocks for breakfast, jocks lacking hygeine
& now, among them, lone starchild set free
Y’know, the ones on earth most seldom born,
Like single poppies in a plain of corn.
From Carrickmore his father’s bloodline sprang
A tiny Tyrone town without pizzazz
Don’s Uncle Delbert as a tenor sang
Beside Bing Crosby, & the kings of jazz,
As Aberdeen’s grey weathers overhang,
Upon the Cobain menfolk, each bloke has
Depression, drinking problems, with the odd
Gunshot in the dark, on a date with God.
There’s nothing like loving thy first born child,
When every waking day’s a nursery
& sleeping is a myth – toys & nappies pil’d
In spating months Kurt’s curiosity
& sharpen’d perceptions would lead to wild
Excited, explosive precocity –
Whose toddling tantrums something to endure
But, damn! That kid is talented, for sure!
‘Is this a dagger‘, hallucin‘d Macbeth,
& did not Caliban, with ‘southwest blow,‘
Threaten Prospero with subhuman breath,
Thus poetry’s the place where spirits go
Like paper kites, flying ‘twixt life and death
With rich alchemic feeling, embryo
Resurrection, paints bones & blood & flesh –
So look, wee Kurt‘s been taken to a creche,
Where all who saw him wobble out, then in
Respond to his sunny disposition,
A choice wee boy rejoicing in his skin –
But there was something else, like a mission
Sent from heaven, Wendy would stroke her chin,
Watching him watching the television
Fully aware which one’s were Vietcong,
& life’s not always fair, & right from wrong.
Three years beyond the cold baptismal font,
Kurt entertains squads of aunts & uncles,
Whom, begging to babysit, with a want
Somehow bewitch’d – planets round a sun, gulls
At scraps – Arlo’s Alice’s Restaurant
& others of Simon & Garfunkles,
He sang with cherub sweetness, sheer delight
Did fill their lives with Elfin fairy-light.
Sensing a love of music in the boy
Aunt Mari bought a bass drum that became
Within a minute his favourite toy
That with a wildness none of them could tame
He’d bang & bang & bang & bang, annoy
The house & all the neighbourhood, first fame
For his performances, as marching round
The Streets of Aberdeen all heard his sound.
Aunt Mari was a musician herself
She’d gigg‘d in bars for years, even releas’d
A single, that she lifts down from a shelf
& plays it Kurt, whose love for her increas’d
“Auntie you are famous!” her little elf,
Squeez’d hard her hand, as solemn as a priest
Says, “one day I’m gonna be just like you!”
“What’s that?” “A singy star, I’ll be one too!”
“In that case you’d better listen to these…”
& carefully selecting some albums
Rewards him with Beatles & the Monkees –
In a flash a Mickey Mouse set of drums
Was his for Christmas, with a kiss, cos she’s
“The best mum in the mummyverse of mums!”
Thrash-smash-bash-crashing, splash-crashing, ev’ry day,
That by the spring was far too trash’d to play!
On each & ev’ry bedtime, as he lies
Upon his back, & to the roof did gaze
He’d talk to diff’rent people in the skies
Those ones who’d beam’d him down with lazar rays,
For he was really alien, in guise
Of human boy, concocted in the bays
Of some vast spaceship, whose parents on Earth
Adopted him, & fak’d a human birth.
As earth-days broke he woke up with a smile,
Rejoicing in the rising of each sun,
When, up & down the street, mile-after-mile
He’d ride his bike with effervescent fun;
Then, after lunch, this restless juvenile
Then plays at cowboys with a plastic gun
Til Donald look’d at Wendy, with a sneer,
“I think our boy is hyperactive, dear.”
In an age when pharmaceuticals reign
Doctors dismiss holistic vitamins
Prescribing crap that drags a wild kid sane,
But leaves them hook‘d on drugs – of ritalin’s
Properties, anti-narcoleptic brain
Like one subsum‘d by base amphetamines,
Which leaves wee Kurt awake, again, all night
Back-issue comics flicking by torchlight.
When Star Wars came to town Kurt‘s powers bloom‘d,
For he knew he was watching relations,
On Tatooine a memory exhum’d
Of visiting, with the delegation
Of some red planet (by two suns illum’d) –
But, cursing his human limitations
Kurt wish’d he could just Jedi back to base
At hyperspeeds, leave Earth, of him, no trace.
One day he gave his grandfather some art
With Donald Duck so accurately drawn
He was accus’d of tracing, so did start
Another drawing straightways! When alone
With papers, markers, comic books, apart
From other human beings, he would spawn
Aliens & monsters, from time-to-time
Added words for fun, even some that rhyme.
He watch’d the choppers rising from Saigon
& just-like-that the war in Vietnam
Was over, one they never could have won
His uncle home return’d a diff’rent man
Who, walking with his nephew, said, ‘Kurt, son
There’s not much work these parts, but if you can
Avoid the US Army, witness’d I
Such sights long sleepless nights still horrify.
His father was a Chevron mechanic
With neither love for learning or the learn’d,
But border’d, watching sports, on the manic
Of baseball scores grew trueliest concern’d,
& basketball he watches in nigh panic –
Each football Sunday felt his sad wife spurn’d –
“I don’t think I ever really loved him,
Most nights there’s only me & Kurt & Kim.”
All thro’ his life, blew suddenly, sea-change,
That night, all night, he heard his parents shouting,
& slamming doors, next meal-times things strain’d strange,
& now, of life‘s loveliness, Kurt‘s doubting
& no, he doesn‘t like it, as thoughts range
Cross awful possibilities – pouting
Hard, he heard the news, consum’d with hate,
His parents, on a doomsday, separate.
What is the point of living if this life
Is laid on false foundations, why, at all
Would anyone pretend they’re man & wife,
Injecting children in an urban sprawl
If all they do‘s succumb their states to strife,
Not constant be, whatever might befall –
Why can’t they just be friends & just get on –
Kurt sat, kerb-down, & cried for all that’s gone!
As moodiness hard overcame the child
The tiniest of slights would make him mad
From sleeping cat to tiger in the wild
From angel good to very-very bad;
One day his marker pen white walls defil’d –
‘I HATE mum,’ ‘I HATE dad,’ ‘I am so SAD,’
As riding out his pains & ritalin,
Around the room his brain in fits would spin.
With selfish wrists divorcing parents pour
Into our bitter childhoods cups of salt,
When, sundering our fragile system’s core,
We‘ll blame ourselves, convinc’d its all our fault,
We‘ll traumatize, with whinings, to restore
A status quo made derelict, & halt
This desperate, obliviating slide
To flaking pits where shits the Lion’s pride.
All of Kurt’s joys invert to hurt & pain,
‘He’s from a broken home’ he’d hear them quip,
Or thought he did, with prestige on the wane,
His school a purgatory he must skip,
At ten-years-old he felt his youth was slain,
As when a tarr’d hulk, turn’d to fireship,
Is set adrift towards opposing fleets –
With frozen toes he walks the lonely streets!
Kurt’s trapp’d in a world of mute dysfunction,
Where finite trees of ancient lineage,
Plunge in a plight of resource reduction,
Hampering lay-off lives, from Wishkah Bridge
Droop ropes of hanging men, dull conduction
Of closing mills, with nothing in the fridge,
The old prosperity has fall’n away,
Leaves Aberdeen tooth-aching with decay.
So where were we? ah, yes, when divided
A family still has to rear the kids
A decision anciently decided
The mums’ll get ’em, even invalids
Some might call the custom quite misguided
Others, just our link to the arachnids
When, after mating, females set a tomb
Inside their gullets, nourishing the womb.
Kurt stays with Wendy, with his sister dwells
In Aberdeen, population sixteen
Thousand, six hundred & sixty seashells
On shores where days of sun – few, far between
With nothing much to break the mundane spell
Of life in this backwater, piss-filled spleen
Of a town of ten-pin, televisions,
May parades & chainsaw competitions.
Kurt knew his mum was very beautiful
Attracting street attention, she soon found
A man to sex her from dysfunctional –
Alas, as prospers often on rebound,
She met a loser, reprehensible,
He beat her, mind & body, to the ground
Who told her son was better if he scramm’d –
A cuntish “fuck you mum!” as front-door slamm’d.
His dad moves Kurt to Montesano, where
Their prefab home truck’d to some trailer park,
That with a party was assembl’d there
Warm beers & beef & banter into dark
By morning‘s low a brand-new home to share
With his dear son, a modern Noah’s ark
Without the women folk, but with the dogs
& rodents, paradise among the logs.
Whatever young Kurt wanted Kurt soon had,
& did whatever too, his dad did teach
Him shooting, how to smile & just be glad
They lived near nature Don was no Nietzsche
But knew where to tickle his son when sad,
&, one evening, when camping down the beach
Kurt pleading, “Dad please don’t marry again?”
Says Don, “I promise, son, I won’t…” most plain.
The walk to Montesano’s High School took
Less than ten minutes, one morn, time to kill
Shortcutting thro‘ thick woods, retorting ‘fuck!’
He saw a human hanging, twisted, still…
For more-than-time Kurt stood there & just shook
Useless limbs to life, crepuscular thrill,
But nothing happen’d, suicide is real
No more to think, to drink, to stink, to feel.
Then came the day Kurt wish’d he would have stay’d
In Aberdeen, his dad fully reneg‘d
Upon his promise, just so he’d get laid –
Promptly remarried, furthermore was plagued
Step-siblingly, blood loyalties betray’d,
As when the British soldier ‘Gen’ral Haig’d’
& blindly thrust at trenches empty promis’d
Those ruthless maxim bullets did the rest.
Within a house of larger yards & bulks
This just-add-water family took root
Whose basement grew a cauldron ditch of sulks,
A pit to lock the door, shut out, refute,
This mad reality, a pile of Hulks,
Thors, Spidermen, & always this string’d lute
Whichm play’d with incredible excitement,
Expung’d the bullshit from his life’s indictment.
However much his ‘second mother’ tried
He‘d always spurn her soft felicity,
Grieving for his own family that died
Descending into animosity
He’d bully his step-brother ’til he cried
& fought his father to adversity,
Begging his mother always on the phone,
“Can I come back…” “I’m sorry son…” &…. groan…
Don tried the best he could in his own way,
I mean, some kids have never seen the face
Of their fathers, to work each Saturday
Don took his son, given the run of the place,
Kurt makes prank phone-calls, log-piles climbs at play,
The scampers to Don’s truck, his special place
Where Queen‘s ‘News of the World’ play‘d constantly
‘Til sound cuts-out when drains the battery.
Some of us born to that small percentile
Who’ll detect injustice just by instinct:
About his classrooms, searching all the while,
For someone to fit in with, make a stink
Wear a wacky haircut, a punkophile –
But nothing, no-one, all his classmates think
Kurt was the kid most likeliest to bring
An AK into school & start shooting.
Thirteen years young, live on Saturday night,
The B52s, blasting down his ear-cans
Pledging a songbird to its fledgeling flight,
A nexus point for focussing all plans
Kurt paints on sneakers little black & white
Squares, just like Fred Schneider’s checkerboard vans
& wore them, next day, proudly into school
Some laugh’d, some diss’d him, some, tho’, thought it cool.
Upon the day Kurt’s fourteen years now are,
His Uncle Chuck offers a brand new bike
Or an old electric six-string guitar
Made in Japan – well, Kurt, what would you like… –
As when whaleship see blips on a radar,
Or finger slips out of a Dutch boy’s dike –
From tranquil scenes futurity explodes
In scudding floods, ferocious overloads!
As heaven‘s manna fell on Kurt‘s lithe hands
He picks up Louie Louie, so he thought,
The one song play’d by all the North-West bands
De facto anthem, with a chunk he caught
The change of chords, the strangest plain expands
Of sounds achievable, if when them sought
He’d sit down, & with patience at his back
He’d spin each finger-fumble to a knack.
Then comes the fatal gym class, skipping rope
He trips & slips a disc, scoliosis
Evolves, a pain so rough most barely cope,
For, spinal curvature, one prognosis
There is no cure, no respite & no hope,
“I never ask’d for, I never chose this,
How can bodies transform in such strange ways,”
Mulls hurting Kurt thro‘ his painkiller haze.
His Uncle Chuck’s guitarist came along
& sat him down, & ask’d him what he knew
The boy play’d ‘Louie Louie’, got bits wrong
& was corrected there, the pair soon flew
Thro‘ three fast months, & many a new song
“My Best Friends Girl” & “Back in Black” but two,
Another‘s, “Another One Bites the Dust”
&, overall, Kurt pull‘d them off… well, just.
Kurt found himself three-chord structures strumming
& settl’d them to soft, yet metal grooves,
Then, switching rich melodies, throat humming
Sounds, internal editor approves,
& mouths their shapes, syllables keep coming
Like a lyrical instrument, that moves
Together with guitar, tapping a beat beat
With those chequerboard sneakers on his feet.
Eureka! with his special purpose found,
Or mission, even, Kurt would play & play
& play all day, experiment with sound
Grew out his hair, & practice what he‘d say
When interview’d by journalists, who’d hound
His ev’ry move, while schooling, day-by-day
Fell by the wayside, flunking ev’ry class,
Except for art & music‘s sacred mass!
To social skills & schoolwork’s detriment
Kurt practic’d his guitar, his father sat
Him down one day & on the next was sent
To join the best boys on a wrestling mat
A chance his inner furies to unvent,
A smash of shocks, a flash & down jocks crash
Transforming this shy guy from nerdy squirt
To hyper-daemonical extrovert!
Coach told Don, “Kurt’s one of the best I’ve had!
& I want him to represent the school,”
So came the match, the first made Don mad
The second shock’d, the third time felt he fool
After the fourth he storm’d out, red-fac’d, mad‚
How could the little bastard think that’s cool,
Just folding arms & getting himself pinn’d
With no resistance, his roof I’ll rescind!‘
So, back in Aberdeen, back with his mum
Too stoned for geeks, too geeky for stoners
Oblivious to fame’s fate meant to come
This maharaja king of the loners,
Now stalks the lonely sidewalks, chewing gum,
Cursing happy windows of homeowners
Kurt, snorting gas & dropping LSD,
Abus‘d his mind & rues reality…
With birthday dough Kurt bought his soul’s release,
A brand new amp beyond 11 turn’d,
With broomstick-thumps did Wendy beg surcease;
As walls & windows shook Kurt grinn’d & spurn’d
The neighbourhood, be-throttled from its peace
By constant crunchy dirge, that gurning churn’d
The manticles of panting manticore
That fills its jaws with earth – so rich, so raw!
Come summer, deepest crimson creeping west,
When witness’d from the State of Washington,
Upon the beach, when barbecues taste best,
Beside the ocean, partying, the sun
Splitting gigantic trees on ev’ry crest,
& with a sense the world could yet be won,
No wonder, here, the music of the spheres,
Descended in these halcyonic years.
Let one identify with written word
In hicksville towns, as means to them escape,
Kurt Beckett loves, & Burroughs, from the herd
They stood apart, like him, behind a drape
That kept away those carry-ons, absurd,
Of Peyton Places episodes on tape;
Of watching, judging, from life’s little slots,
Like sludge stuck in the holes of pepper pots.
One lunch-break in the school refectory
In swaggers hugest creature from elsewhere
Whose kindest smile cast contradictory
Signals – Kurt drill‘d within him, with a stare,
& felt his spirit some fun factory
Of frolicking, working so hard in there,
Yet, something else – Kris Novoselic smil’d
At Kurt, that moment two souls reconcil‘d.
His mom met Pat O’Connor, & was wed
Before the real man she realised
Who, thro‘ his life philanderingly sped,
& drinking heavily, & phantasized
But never did a thing thus promis-ed
Kurt all their ceaseless bickering despis‘d
While tempers raged & voices raisd the roof
He strumming, sat, from ma & Pat, aloof.
With no bands to watch, nor clubs to dance in,
Them both were round pegs in a dead square hole,
“Aberdeen’s a boil that just needs lancin!”
Moans Kurt, etching in trees with eager scrawl,
Sex Pistols logos – instead of romancin’
Teenage girls, torn angst would overthrall,
His essence, setting inner demons free,
Brooding for hours on the Raincoats LP.
Of all his classes only one fired Kurt
With a quotient of enthusiasm
That class was art, where with each eager spurt
His crayons convers’d with ectoplasm
The next desk on saw Krist with Shelli flirt
Teenage gigglings verging on orgasm
& all the while Kurt curs’d the radio
With negative saercasm, blow-by-blow.
Kurt woke up to another argument,
Just after dawn, Pat’s home, has tried to sneak
Back into bed, but analeptic sent
His ma, of other women Pat did reek
As, off to work, in fury, Wendy went
Their raft of marriage sprang a major leak
Of whiskey liquids swigging, glug by glug
His wife back home, Pat stood & tried a hug
“Oh fuck you!” spat Wendy, shotgun grabbing
All in a flap, Pat fearing for his life,
“Tell me who your cock has been a-dabbing
Or I’ll shoot you dead!” – luckily his wife
Couldn’t load Pat’s gun, she starts nabbing
All of his weapons, rifles, army knife
Pistols, belts of bullets bagged up & tossed
Into the Whishkah, “fuck how much they cost!”
Kurt, sharp as ever startled by the shout
Observes the goings on, each sinking gun,
So paid some local kids to fish them out
Then took them to a dealer, deal soon done
With winnings, what to do with, had no doubt
& bought an amp, his very first, not gone
Yet, was the money, so went to buy weed
Got stoned, & jamm’d so loudly, proud indeed!
Our children could be anything at all
Some sports obsess’d, some staunch political
Some natural parents, some hate the role,
Some heavenly & some heretical
Some total seafarers, some hometown small
While some turn out to be poetical,
Dismissing standard schooling, “What’s the point?
When knowledge reach we thro’ a reefer joint.”
A half-retarded sister of a friend,
Invites Kurt’s visit, casually stripp’d
In front of him, for she did full intend
Their union by foreplay – penis gripp’d
She guided him intercourse – which did end
The moment kurt inhal’d her kiss-breath, slipp’d
Out & away as fast as possible
Morose, remorseful, feeling horrible!
Twas during lunchbreak the rumours started
That reach’d her dad by afternoon recess
Who briefly swoon’d, like the broken-hearted
Then rose for retribution from distress
& charg’d to school, but before he’d started
His daughter’s martyrship, must acquiesece
Upon a point of law, being eighteen
Her right to give consent them pass’d between.
Kurt plung’d in karma of a different kind
The mayhem of his classmates’ spite-attacks
with ‘retard fucker’ assuaging mind
He went to lie down on some railway tracks
Cement bags on legs & ches, heard the grind
Of a train approaching fast – shrugs off sacks
& stood & dived & saved himself from death
In brambles tangl’d, & panting for breath.
Kurt went back home & cried & would not speak
& hides himself away from knock & call
& skiv’d away from school an entire week
The thought of more abuse him did appall
Until, one sleepless night, thinks ‘I’m a freak
Anyway, in all their eyes, so let’s just roll
With it, just smile & whistle, & look weird
For, after all, it’s time I grew a beard!’
Now ev’ry time Kurt swallow’d food he’d wince
& clench the muscles of his sorry guts;
It made no diff’rence, mash’d potato, mince,
Fish, soup, stew – twas death by a thousand cuts
So took to drugs these pains to ease & rinse
But not the cocaine of the cartel mutts,
Whose bright effects too sociable made Kurt
When he sought out oblivion, inert.
Kurt deems jocks vulgar brash-head idiots,
Macho oxen from the working classes
Whom, tit-for-tatty, detested faggots
In dungarees, cardigans & glasses
Them taunted were, squash’d like flies’ maggots
Whenever in the corridor one passes
Metal lockers, slamm’d against them with force
& screaming cheap expletives until hoarse!
Kurt tends now to skip school each second day,
Bored, tired, stoned, all things unfascinating,
The State has plac’d a dung heap in his way
He’s needing two years credits back-dating
Without which list of numbers, come what may,
There’s won’t be a chance of graduating
& did he even want to, he would ask
Himself when fac’d by such an awkward task.
Yes, without all those credits there’s no doubt
He’d schooling lose, but still possess’d, he, youth
Enough, & time to pass & figure out
His destiny, so High School left uncouth
His mother gave a banshee angry shout
The day she learnt the embarrassing truth
The ultimatum‘d leave or find a job
Her house, no harbour for a teenage slob.
This was the moment, should I stay, or go,
Say we stood at the sliding of the doors
To buckle down upon a rung-drop low,
With mop & bucket scrubbing someone‘s floors,
Or offer faith to our manifesto
& leave it to the Gods who‘ll only know
Which of their chosen attest invention
By forces of divine intervention
& so he hugg‘d his mum & left her home
Felt chilly at the shutting of the door,
A poet-singer with the right to roam
As erstwhile the Provencal troubadour
Thro‘ foreign courts tour‘d his conservatoire,
Sophisticated, if a tad footsore;
But that sad night Kurt got not very far
& slept, uncomfy, in some scrapsoon car.
(AA) AXIS & ALLIES: Introduction
Serializing
Damo Bullen’s
Epic poem
AXIS & ALLIES
Throughout
2024 & 2025
in
91 Cantos
Being
An Account
of the
Reign of Mars
in the
Kali Yuga
********************
Time is the master of the universe. Time is the root of history. No one can prevent the march of Time or what it brings. I will now tell you what Time is going to bring in the future – the evils of the Kali Age
Vyasa
********************
Epic poetry is a gateway to the most highest & excellent truths of human experience. To convey such a thing, its authors must elevate their language while educating its hearers, all the while adding to the prestige of a nation.
My own epic poem, Axis & Allies has been the work of my life. Beginning in Brighton, 1999, it has both escorted & driven me across the planet in the pursuit of its creation. Four years ago, on the Greek island of Samothraki, I thought I’d formally completed the poem, as I saw it then, & as this video attests;
An Olympiad later, or so, I resum’d my task, focusing this year on the central cantica, concerning the build up to, & the actualisation of, the Second World War. This video shows me at the very start of the poem’s latest composition period;
This next video was filmed January 18th, 2024, & shows me adding flavour to the stanza notes from events 1930-36.
The next video was film’d just a few days before the start of the Chinese new year (I’m a Fire Dragon)
The next video was film’d in Arran on the day I finalised the poem’s architectronics
The next video was film’d in Calabria, with about 50 tryptychs to go
The next video was film’d in Edinburgh within touching distance of completing the poem
The next video was filmed in Glen Rosa, Arran, August 30th 2024, moments after completing the pen & ink version of the poem
After editing Axis & Allies, I’d realised I was 3 stanzas short – so I set off one bright winter’s morning to (finally) complete my epic, not far from my residence in Brodick, on Arran
With the poem finally finish’d, it was time to move house…
…But then there was one more stanza to compose, somewhere near the bones of Dante
& then, at last, Dante’s Tomb
There will be 91 cantos in total
Uploaded onto Mumble Words
Enjoy !!
x
Damo
(AA) L’Amfiparnasso
**************************************
So arose the practice of celebration in exalted verse the battles & other notable deeds of men, together with those of the gods.
Boccaccio
Invocation
Something has broken in the mouths
of the young men on earth
Our thoughts fail us, we are made poor
Arthur Yap
There is a glade in an ancyent forest,
Where glittering pools of dewy azure
Assail ripe sense… insliding, moonbeam-bless’d,
Soul bathes in blissful dreamtime gleaming pure;
Attended by
My nine naked maidens,
Vulvaean lullaby lilting thro’ lovegardens.
She harps a song, she summons stars,
She waltzes round the waters,
She treats these sainted battlescars,
She paints a floating lotus,
She strums her summergold guitars;
Loxianic daughters!
How lovely & how livid floods thy light,
What ever-living wonders must I write?
They wing & weave thro’ tryptych tones,
Sing rich enchanted chime,
Soft music hones their mystic moans,
& so… my all must rhyme…
With hopes of flashing heroes up Parnassus slopes we’ll climb!
To My Readers
he had worn out his teeth
on the locks of ancient gates.
On the most out-of-the way paths
Ahmad Shamlu
I know these words rest heavy in the hands,
When reading them should heap a little while,
But think of me alone in distant lands,
With heavy load, abroad an extra mile;
Thro’ thorn, up steep,
In search of awesome views,
Where I would sit in deep communion with the Muse.
Gadswounds! My global chronicle
Will preserve the violent show
Of our planet’s lust for battle,
Men panting for Megiddo;
Friends! Be ready for to Google
All words ye do not know,
When mining into human history,
This is a kind of University!
Prepare a bath, pour out your wines,
Light up a candle’s flame,
Unlace your minds, embrace these lines,
Enlightenment our aim,
War’s business is but terrible – not glory, nor a game.
Impulses
Unleash a poem slow enough,
Fie with vigilance & care
& you’ll discover lots of stuff
Don Paterson
I sing of Mars, whose blood-besplatter’d reign
Lived long among the secret brotherhoods,
& if these verses vast mine aim deem plain:
To elevate auld lives before the Floods;
When to the stars,
Or in our upmost caves,
This exile song of Mars an epic epoch saves.
As the vestige Villanovan
Found in Verruchian tombs,
As golden-thron’d Glasgerion
Immortalis’d ladies looms,
Ready, my lithe young mind…. Open!
When poetry resumes,
I’ll pay the World its histrionic dues,
Quite polyamorous to every Muse.
Non sono nazifaschisti,
Fair freedoms forged in blood,
The mystery of history
Spreads thro’ me like a wood,
In which I’ll twist unfettered feet as only Clio could.
Valedictions
I should invent my own speech
and leave others empty and afraid
that they did not know it, could not ask
Ricardo Pau-Llosa
I am no pickpurse of another’s wit,
Yet understand tradition is a tool,
When mostly I’m the Muses’ conduit
& sing to them, prostrately, as a fool,
“Je suis rien,
Per je ne suis pas dieu,
Vous etes tout mon bien, le lustre de mon cieux!”
As when old Thales’ Iliad
By princely rhapsodes utter’d,
The ghosts behind these lines glow glad
Whenever they’ll be mutter’d,
As if some new Upanishad
Down the Deccan flutter’d,
Containing all the epos of an age,
Far from the sterile tombstone of the page.
As when elders Albanian
Sang legends kith & kin,
Or the herdsmen born Suqatran
Release word hoards within…
Verse-vestibules in history unleash Cruachan’s Djinn!
Arcadia
A beggar at the crack of dawn comes with
an empty cup, just as a line of monks
serenely with their bowls set out for alms
Saksiri Meesomsueb
Always preparing, always reparing,
The new ensemble of a Danaan song;
No single impulse, but many sharing,
A swirl of verse, a whirl of words among
Eternal heights
Of endless mountenance:
Criss-crossing cloudless nights wild woodland swans advance!
With Saint John & the Patmos vine,
The Bard of the Scyldingas,
Dante’s Commedia Divine,
Tasso’s inspired Crusaders,
With Spenser’s store of faerie wine
& Milton’s masterclass,
I made my bed – from patchwork eiderdown,
I pluck’d my quills & ink’d them up in town!
From erudition constancy
To genius applies;
Consistency, coherency,
Watch phaerie wonders rise
From paranormal mutterings… them given golden guise.
Astrophel
into a world
waiting like
a quiet lover
Max Reif
I stretch to grasp the gross Orphean lyre,
These fingers on the fringe with fuga fraught,
When en-plein-air whisp’ring perfumes transpire,
Hyblean murmors of prophetic thought;
Beside Mankind
I find my social niche,
Reflective & refined; the poesy of pastiche.
Along the road I drank my wine,
While others gave it gladly,
Good souls were they, old friends of mine,
Such thanks to all who’ve had me,
Some tickl’d by this soul-sunshine,
Others flummox’d madly,
For poets & their strangely ancyent ways
Are meant to men affix… affront… amaze.
As from the Wealth of Nations rise
A pleasure-loving soul,
Invested ties friendship supplies
Up puff me proud & tall,
To conjure something rich & queer to steer us, each & all.
Testamundi Poeticus
And if there’s something that remains
Through sounds of horn and lyre,
It too will disappear into the maw of time
Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin
I am a man, many have gone before
& will come yet; to thee I trust this song,
Pray let her fly to every foreign shore,
Shewing the World how once the World went wrong;
Such manic times
Have ended, only just,
Whose freshness fills my rhymes far from the bookish dust.
I would the World should hear this song
& sing her down the ages,
So, when the epic, proud & long,
Renaissance ever stages,
Let poets ply their trade among
Polytechnic pages,
Finding a thing or two that they could use
In future conversations with their Muse.
Namore shall Homers chaunt War’s praise
Or Owens curse it’s game;
Some psychic craze, unbridl’d days,
Crude torture, quelling shame,
This is my long-wrought testament to what Mankind became.
Avanti!
I am not a mirage, but a being in flesh
Born of a sea that has neither
Waves nor shore, nor moon, nor star
Horace Gregory
When two traditions meet in epic song,
There history & poetry converge
Upon a point called nexus, whence among
Man’s consciousness progressive senses merge;
Tilling the soil,
Planting these sapling shoots,
Which over time uncoil as fields of figs & fruits.
So grow, ye lotus-burnish’d gold,
Ye zest-infested lemon,
Go store these tales of glories old
For future to look back on,
Five thousand years must now unfold
Before this age is run;
Half-way, of course, some Homer might arise
& half-an-age in poesy realize.
Asoka’s edicts I have seen
War’s monuments may you,
Days pass’d have been disturb’d, obscene,
But from the gore their grew
This peaceful pearl, this precious planetary parvenu!
Aquarians
Buried was the dreadful war-club,
Buried were all warlike weapons,
And the war-cry was forgotten
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We’ll all look back on Us with pure disgust,
How on Earth did we let Hitler happen?
Lest we forget his deeds, with thee I trust
These tryptychs prim’d on a cryptic pattern;
Homeric horn,
Of perpetuity,
To thrill, to teach, to warn, through all futurity!
Beyond the threshfold of warfare
As fought by brave Achaean,
To atom-splitting solar flare
Flung from the North Korean,
The threat of death the World would share;
Bodies block the Scaean –
Unnumber’d, multitudinous, immense –,
How many lives are robb’d of innocence?
Like amaranth anemones
This book of rumbling words,
Mnemones & melodies,
Midst lines of waltzing thirds,
Must shimmer ever phosphorous as if t’were sufi birds.
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