FARNHAM
for Matthew Sweeney


to pick a day when the light rises over rooftops
to pick a day when light warms me and I wake
to a nightmare of young girls all smiles and whispers


I’m wearing my dark suit with the silver threads
I’m wearing a wine-dark suit that offers a blessing
a suit with the buttons done up all wrong


the room is a deep puddle or a lions den
the room is a theatre where Hamlet passes
light turning blue because of the windows


I’m sitting to hear a recital by a beast
I’m sitting and am surrounded by these uniforms
I’m a black stone surrounded by white stones


schoolgirls all round me with their wine-dark uniforms
schoolgirls with their mouths, bare legs and long hair
the young girls all smiles and whispers


their shouts when I passed the local school haunt
their shouts of “Rodney, Rodney, still sits on his potty.”
and I’m a hurt animal who wants to crawl away


the young girls are ushered out to the night
the young girls all smiles and whispers
are in their beds dreaming of a lake of words


of the poet who read them verses in the hall
of the poet who was blind like Homer
who was drunk sailing on the wine-dark sea

The High Window

BUT FOR NOW WE MUST CURB YOUNG PEOPLE’S SOCIAL MEDIA USE

“We do not know what is happening in the heavens, but impudently and rashly they profess to know…. For they are going to say this and any nonsense at all rather than confess their own ignorance. Theirs is not only ignorance but blindness and total madness, which many times in the past was evident to everyone, but never more clearly than during this present plague.” Petrarch, Letters of old age

let’s put a tax on foreign house buyers / let’s become a tax haven for the deserving rich / let’s leave the United States of Europe / let’s welcome all foreign house buyers / let’s put Europe at the heart of Britain / let’s put a tax on wealth for the undeserving rich

let’s privatise the NHS / let’s put all workers on minimum wage / let’s restore the great British dream / let’s fully fund the NHS / let’s dream of making Britain great again / let’s double the minimum wage

let’s bring in the snoopers charter / let’s increase the working week to 60 hours / let’s slash all subsidies / let’s never even think of the snoopers charter / let’s subsidise what people need / let’s reduce the working week to 30 hours

let’s tax and humiliate the undeserving poor / let’s put young people in hock to the state / let’s replace the Human Rights Act / let’s give money and respect to the undeserving poor / let’s keep the Human Rights Act / let’s help young people get a career and get a life

I am not a silent poet

MUDDY WATERS
4 April 1968


During the daytime the room is used as an underground café
but in the evening it’s transformed once the Formica tables
& plastic chairs have been pushed against the lemon painted walls
leaving a space next to a poster of someone’s head covered in bandages.

All this for Muddy Waters & his band from Chicago to play the blues –
Mannish Boy, Can’t Be Satisfied, I’m Ready & Got My Mojo Working.
To me it was a history lesson, a dream, like the Second Coming,
watching Muddy Waters & his band from Chicago playing the blues.

One table & one chair are left untouched on the opposite
side of the room under a frosted window & out of date price list.
I sat there watching men & women jump & shout at sounds
from electric guitars, harmonica, drums, & a voice moaning through the amps.

It was Muddy Waters & his band from Chicago playing the blues –
Mannish Boy, Can’t Be Satisfied, I’m Ready & Got My Mojo Working.
To me it was a history lesson, a dream, like the Second Coming,
watching Muddy Waters & his band from Chicago playing the blues.

I silently tapped my shoes on the lino, my fingertips plucked invisible strings.
I was five yards away from the action watching men & women jump & shout
& I puffed a menthol cigarette to appear cool, at ease & invisible as smoke.
I was the only white kid in the room the day Martin Luther King had been shot

& I was watching Muddy Waters & his band from Chicago playing the blues –
Mannish Boy, Can’t Be Satisfied, I’m Ready & Got My Mojo Working.
To me it was a history lesson, a dream, like the Second Coming,
watching Muddy Waters & his band from Chicago playing the blues

& I was the only white kid in the room the day Martin Luther King had been shot.

VISIT TO THE AUDIOLOGY CLINIC WITH HUMA BIRD, 1973

and I left saying Thank you to the Doctor / and his gift was life without parole / he said One day you will be totally deaf / and I left saying Thank you to the Doctor / he said One day you will be totally deaf / and his gift was life without parole

to hear Beethoven / Stockhausen / BB King / to hear Abba / Frank Zappa / Ornette Coleman /while I was able I had to go to concerts / gigs / to hear Beethoven / Stockhausen / BB King while I was able I had to go to concerts / gigs / to hear Abba / Frank Zappa / Ornette Coleman

kids in the playground / raindrops tap-dancing / the wind blowing through branches / and I had to hear everything in the world / kids in the playground / raindrops tap-dancing / and I had to hear everything in the world / the wind blowing through branches

leaves hitting the ground / crackling fires / waves crashing the beach / cars crunching gears / and I had to hear everything in the world / leaves hitting the ground / crackling fires / and I had to hear everything in the world / waves crashing the beach / cars crunching gears

poetry (but I didn’t know it back then) / opening a can of soup / breath (mine especially) and I had to hear everything in the world / poetry (but I didn’t know it back then) and I had to hear everything in the world / opening a can of soup / breath (mine especially)

kittens chattering / bursting bubble wrap / thunder / the song that comes from my lips / and I had to hear everything in the world / kittens chattering / bursting bubble wrap / and I had to hear everything in the world / thunder / the song that comes from my lips

conversation that soars / climbs / dives / races / and those simple words / “I love you”and I had to hear everything in the world / conversation that soars / climbs / dives / races / and I had to hear everything in the world / and those simple words / “I love you”

I’ll be locked in an anechoic chamber / to live with the pangs of memory / and miss everything that’s grown familiar / I’ll be locked in an anechoic chamber / and miss everything that’s grown familiar / to live with the pangs of memory

and miss hearing everything / music / kids / nature / but most of all those simple words “I love you”

Tears in the Fence

ERIC SATIE – THE EXQUISITE KEYBOARD

“Music expanded in new directions as Europe’s mid-14th century society collapsed in the face of the plague. Composers who survived the monstrosity came out of it interested in exploring new secular musical forms.” http://www.wqxr.org/story/weird-classical-history-black-death-music-parties/

consider light / furniture / the zeitgeist / rhinestones / mongrel art I sing of days / my suit of leaves / consider light / furniture / the zeitgeist I sing of days / my suit of leaves / rhinestones / mongrel art

with a yellow scarf / umbrella / & the smoke of hades / the feet of Cinderella that turd Duchamp thinks of me / with a yellow scarf / umbrella that turd Duchamp thinks of me / & the smoke of hades / the feet of Cinderella

composed with a certain brio / a lyric painted by Picasso my work is embryonic / unsayable / chilled / composed with certain brio my work is embryonic / unsayable / chilled / a lyric painted by Picasso

never going to be loved or adored / like an exquisite keyboard a xylophone of bones / a poor vagrant / never going to be loved or adored a xylophone of bones / a poor vagrant / like an exquisite keyboard

The Journal