[Byzantine Bindings]

Wednesday 18 June 2014

How to recognise any thing



describe every element of it
every inflection metaphor
even weakling simile

nuance
in line tone texture colour

make every connection and reference
senses especially note
every relatedness
ancestral
note random story parts
tumbling down the bank
and then
in the aftermath of pen paper brush

just as it is nailed

melancholy remembers its past
and how you anticipated it

now that it is gone
beyond recognition

Tuesday 17 June 2014

tempus et locus ineffable




it isn't that
I want to escape

or long for somewhere else
unhealthy obsession

or that I think there is
somewhere else to go

milk honey maidens
fountains and the like

aptly named temporality
puts paid to that nonsense

but that having been said
thoughts unravel into dreams

populated by images
unlikely conversations

it's after that I imagine paradise
no more than leaves rustling

or waving
dancing maybe

I daresay fluttering
in the breeze


Friday 13 June 2014

Patchwork



How gentle sleep would come to me
how easy
light would dispel the tiredness
in my soul
but in an effort not to disturb
insecurity gets the upper hand
unconsciously
tenderness surrounds my loss

Wednesday 11 June 2014

The Archaeology of Memory


I met Steiner yesterday -
in the raw
in itself a novelty
picked a bit
then this morning
change of habit
started to read in the
early time
receptors tuned in
fog of the day yet to evolve
I read something
realising a misunderstanding had taken place
rewinding a little and playing it forward I realised
echoes of misundertoodness
archaeological evidence of
error before the sneaky electron
sparked a row
in translocation
or speculation about the properties of light
in its particular waving way
in fact things were never that simple
striking the match
lighting the bunsen
even
(sigh)
even
the placement of the positions on the graph
altered the universe in unimaginable ways
before we knew
though the clues were there they
couldn’t be seen without fundamentally
altering our perceptions of reality
or that reality
in any way shape or form was mere illusion
so little changes as
the years roll by
stasis
maintained amid
cries of revolution
from the starving
war torn places
fundamentally changed
clinging to the appearances of
woollen security
yet preferring
silk’s exotic luxury
I rest my case

Wednesday 4 June 2014

Nuts and Bolts

Aristotle or Plato
at any rate
digging around in the garden
the way they all end up
seeking to unearth
cultivating
grubs of knowledge
worming towards clarity
perhaps we never know or discover
in or outside the veil of experience

It's all beyond me now behind me
now thankfully I contend with
voyages in shaky ships
on perilous oceans
and still make it back in time for tea
one or two choice morsels
and a sip of nectar
to keep a body going
amid uncertainty
in a sea of change.

Perhaps key to the whole business
is discipline
keeping faith with certain anomolies
and fractured hopes
dashed now on rocks
long since forgotten
whose troubles seem like the endless tide
upon the shingle beach
shining words in wet wonder
drying to dullness in the unrelenting gaze of the sun.