The Old Crow Moon
For Joy Harjo

That old Crow moon is going to get you thinking
As he shines through your night time dreams
He takes you back to the Wolf that was stalking
The snow laid on the ground in winter times
His light cast shadows on warriors out seeking
For truth on plains of those unsound written reams
Of pages of histories that were not of their making
As the buffalo and people died as estate claims
Changed the lay of the land into grab and taking
The wolf followed the stray scent of the dimes
Left to the few on horseback and those walking

That old Crow moon is going to get you thinking
As he shines through your night time dreams
He takes you back to the Cold casino raking
In the interest of the people now in streams
Of icy future, where deer run in fear shaking
As they see the promises of the wheel creaking
Then stopping short of the black, on crimes
That come from what pleases the drinking
The fire and passion slides into the tomes
Of the liar and prison, the State of breaking.


That old Crow moon is going to get you thinking
As he shines through your night time dreams
He takes you back to the Redness of striking
Beauty, when the Moon in glory had its beams
Kissed by the Sun without ever once blinking
Then together enraptured like two lovers seems
Too good to be true, when now lives are sinking
Into foreclosure and debt, when poverty teems
Summer romance of this past, but a kind of faking
Of the future, you should avoid all what gleams.


That old Crow moon is going to get you thinking
As he shines through your night time dreams
You pay attention to him, his feathers blacking
The moons gone past, because now his light aims
To get you stretching your soul and awaking
To what you can do if only, he writes in beams
He caws from the skies to the Crows slaking
Their thirst on the dew of hope and dreams
He knows their families and their way of thinking
You will accomplish much if you stay in teams.

The Dead Duck

The Dead Duck.

The oak tree with mossy green at its base, serves as the last resting place
For the duck, a female mallard, her neck candy-floss red, her eyes open in surprise,
The brown and white feathers lost their gloss, as she merges into the leaves and
Mud, a couple of plump ducks waddle past, death is of no concern, nature is no
Forensic detective asking who did it, who killed the broad in daylight, was she
The victim of Spring, as the drakes attempted to copulate, in eagerness
She took fright, and in midflight like a Russian airliner, crashed into the tree,
Her bill in the longitudinal looks like Julia Roberts and a cross with shellfish,
Her demeanor sadly comical, destined for the bin liner, as the park attendant
Will dispose of her corpse as if were garbage, the dead duck in the supermarket
Wets lips of those who taste the crisp flesh, but here, she is a piece of shit
The oak tree with mossy green at its base, serves as the last resting place.

To virtually touch a book

To virtually touch a book is an acquired fetish Like understanding the joke without a punchline A government with a lame duck prime minister The bobsleigh champion that does not finish Those who get kicks from the clicks of Amazon Those who have three to four sauces with burger To almost feel the texture of the paperback Is like the air kiss which one practices in society High on something other than the printed reality To browse properly, is not an obscure pleasure It it a freedom exercised in face of the sinister Google that would do away with direct intercourse Between author, reader and text, and prostitute Rights and duties of what is just plain nature To browse is to breath

1935

1935
A woman, young and moon-faced striding on a May Day in Piccadilly probably in 1935 a horse carriage is drawn up alongside, maybe a posh hotel, opposite the Norwich Union building, and in among a crowd of people, the traffic of society, a man looking with some deliberation, away, avoiding as it were the lens, and a woman in mid-thirties has her index finger in her mouth, agape, seems surprised at Paul Cohen-Portheim author and photographer, Did she know him? Was the man a secret agent of the NAZI? and the young woman, moon-faced with dead fox stole, was she Paul's lover, or was it all completety accidental they should be there on a May day in Piccadilly probably in 1935?

This Easter I spotted some geese

This Easter I spotted some geese with long slooping necks
Heading across the clay pit to a water treatment plant
The two of them made me think of W.B. Yeats' swans
At Coole, then in a short time of course, the Easter Rising
They honked to say hello, and beat across the crucifix
Flying over the sinning poet, who shirked his Dan Brown's
Coded world of angels and demons, and only chocolate
Has significance, unlike his brother, who at Easter works
In prayer and meditation, I will shame upon me, wing
My poem on George Herbert's, cadge a lift on the Christian
Conception, taking all the imagery like the glinted light
Through a stained glass window, there is the Christ
On his cross, his golden-blond hair of the Greek Apollo,
Or the looks of the hippie I knew once on Malvern Common,
Not at all much of a Nazarite, with the nose of the Holocaust,
See those two geese, in Spring they join in natural noise
The message of nature, the site of collective regeneration.

Magnifying Glass on top of Boswell’s Life of Johnson.

Magnifying Glass on top of Boswell’s Life of Johnson.

Concave or convex in the midmost of his imagination
A Samuel Johnson at large would view under the glass
The world of creatures that do not inhabit the orthodox
Or conventional opionion, he would find there a novel
Relation of enlarged perspective, a newly discovered wit
There he humours the reflected moods of Robert Burton,
So then sad Hamlets perplexed by the ghosts of fathers
Would transfigure mothers into a gigantic melancholy
Which on board would transport Samuel to the Far East,
This coveted and idealised past, this fabulous version
Is an indraught of history which the lonely granivorous
Have with their mueseli, their oats and their sunflower
Seeds can only suffice if they travel no further than a bus route,
For the fucking billionaire the limit is set only by the Space
That is much further and out of the pocket of life ordained
By economy, for we can only get as far as obtainable
Like the tiny speck of dust teeming with allegies and mite
Under this dirt cheap, ten kroner magifying glass
Lying on top of Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson.

For C who has gone to a Meeting

For C who has gone to a Meeting.

What is the thrill of the place, except for its novelty,
It is not here, but there, separated by a T,
As if this game could convince me like a Sudoku
Puzzle, something I could never quite understand,
Since it's numbers and not letters, yet you will I am sure
Work through one on the train, and the equation
Might equal the very thought I have, to the decimal
Point carried to what extreme? to freedom, liberty
And what is this that tags along, but stupid jealousy,
Anyway, it is not the same, you are not here, but there,
Should I infer this as a kind of secret rendevous
Like two lovers in times of resistance try to find a clandestine
Spot to embrace and fuck, the interdict forces it to be quick,
Otherwise they will be shot at will, is that my stupid jealousy
Armed with suspicion that casts these ridiculous aspersions,
Pumping up with adrenalin, the word meeting with all possible
Connotations – I met you is that just short of I know you?
And in a bible thumping definition, that they met and it was
... bad,
Do they break bread and generally partake of each other?
What the hell am I supposed to do with this meeting?
Challenge the banns, is there any unreasonable reason
Why these two or more people should not gather
Associate, converse, discuss in public social intercourse?
Yes, because you are THERE and I am HERE and I am
Separated from the letter C who has gone to a "meeting"
For what seems to be for more than an eternity.

The Cream Curtains

The Cream Curtains

The cream curtains the colour of buses in the South of England
Are drawn and retired, behind or rather in front, the wilted
Pepper plant, its fruit shrivelled like the hearts of pensioners
Almost finished, the neglect telling, the leaves once green and
Fresh, now brittle and forgotten, the bus replete with analogies
Drives past the window sill while from inside the secondhand
Maria Callas reaches in shakey cassette tape the high note
In one of those operas by someone, Puccini's or was it Rossini’s?
The potted plant at a distance of a few centimetres from the red
Peppers has a single composite flower struggling like the woman
To keep her head above water in the home where hope has dried
Out, the mixed metaphor like a pill for a case that is now terminal.

The Room Stilled

From behind a framed postcard of the Zeppelin,
Spring two antennae, as if they were in an alien
Farce, the ears of a rabbit, on top of the television,
The passport photograph superfluous to needs,
In vanitas useless, a fossilized sea urchin, an ecinoidean
Without spines, smooth black except for a chalky
Ladder of plates, to imagine this once inhabited
The marine world, millions of years ago, not thousands,
The television is on standby, the colour is kapputted,
Its red eye signals its intention - and the control panel
Is loose like a redneck’s slack jaw, ”Whatdeyermean?”
The descriptive narrative has only a vacumm, does it not
Rosemary? Here, I hear in Penguin book the sounds
Of the Hittite advance in cuniform design to take out
The artefacts of the 21st century and crown their version
Of events today, on this day, in the month of March.

Empty Promises Poster

A Poetry Book of Thirty or So Pages

A Poetry Book of Thirty or So Pages

For Rosemary Tonks wherever she may be

On the back, no, the brink of an evening

he schemed to follow in matter of course

the tone and tenor of Rosemary Tonks

beginning with an image of a bed with

curled up ramshackled sleeping bag

gutted by use, its innards coming out

like teddy bear's stuffing material

pulled out by a child that has clearly

outgrown and lost its will to believe

in fairy tales

the zipper, a deviant, a truant, as in

1950's sociology text lingo, "coming

off tracks", an oxbow of seam exposes

the cold like the flies of a late night

park flasher,

there lies the companion, an orange

and yellow checker board blanket

of synthetic textile with undisclosed

body fluid stains that patch the field

as dried up lakes upon the length

and breadth of

Siberia

In refuge, maybe the cat flea denizen

of detritus, waiting with the patience

of a thousand Jobs to bite and suck

without pleasure, to make one itch

to scratch, this arthropod upon which

a Miriam Rothschild spent a life,

jumps, no, leaps to the flatus of the

narrative, an air of crudity, winding

pathetically past its read by time.

Rosemary how do you take your coffee

or tea, one lump or two, or is it still

too sweet by half? Still with the bed

now it has congress with your mattress

February has gone, now we are in March,

the Iliad has yielded its pages to the Ides -

Beware of the poem, it is no Elysium,

on closer inspection, must we do this?

the stains impress one with the stamp

of love, love is not a cappucino nor a Vesper

motor scooter anymore, it is undefined

for the moment, now the flea of Miriam

leaps, no, jumps to the following Room.

The Swing

Delight in the swing, hazard the future,

will she or he take a fall, and the floral frame

garlands the aristocratic fad for the countryside

at the same time the voyeur looks up the dress

what to see a petticoat - how sad that the scene

has been compared like butter with margarine

with the swing in memory, its rusty and noisy

chain, the seat with I love whoever carved

with penknife into the wood, the thirteen year

olds acting tough smokes cancer and fucking

each other into years of benefit and low income

drinking cider and supping a lifetime abuse

as she pretty thing, swings into high ART

for the critic to appraise her gentle sex

to hazard a guess at the weight of his desire

by the theory and method, whereas the swing

in the local estate symbolises lack of amenities

she makes herself more amenable to the EYE

than the kid snotty trying her damn hardest

to get higher, higher and so much HIGHER.

The Doe

The Deer

Red or roe, i would not know, though by shoulder height, I might
Go for red, but maybe it was shorter, and then it had to be roe,
Certainly, if I follow the guide, it could not have been a fallow,
It was female, without antlers, a doe, and I thought of Audrey
Hepburn in a biography, her doe-like eyes, of a reproduction
Of Courbet’s deer taking shelter, but that was not the right
One, it must have been another, where the skittish animals
Are in mid-flight, like the doe I saw, her white rump flashed
Fright, and she swerved to avoid a bus, and traffic on carriage
Way, as if she were an avatar in a road kill game, an ordinary
And unremarkable animal found across Europe, but this moment,
The centre of all my thoughts and attention, the soft fur hide,
The stilt legs, the long neck, the ballet of survival, she rushed
Through my heart, as a shock and surprise, then came back
As Nature recoiled, the woodland rather than the dockland
The grass rather than asphalt, then in time images pushed
Away her, the art, the trite, the bambi of the first cartoon
In Weston-Super-Mare, and much much later, the deer carved
Up for demonstration, here, spilled out its vital organs and life,
And of course, literature does not keep at bay, it bucks and kicks
Its way through, with puns, and Andrew Marvell, which registers
With my cynicism slained, the nature of an Edward Landseer
Sentimental, none of this youtube rough stuff, of deer on bonnet,
Shot through the head with the contempt of a high powered conceit,
I could only revel in its appearance, sat on the bus, it woke up my
Morning, gave pause for thought and an unutterable shock of beauty.

The Emoticons

The Emoticons

Like Venetian masks, they sport their deception
Using as subterfuge, the emoticon, the refuge
Of not telling, like the fan that had gestures,
But structured, a frozen smile, a grimace,
The absurdity of the advertisement, the ugliness
Of the reduced, this is how I feel, how I feel about,
You, the rosebud ass of a kiss, the slit of a smile,
The constipated anger, the mechanicals of internet,
They parade nothing but the lack of the heart,
Now I join the dance of the emotionless with :-(

Graphic Poem

Graphic 2

Graphic 3

Graphic 4

Graphic poem 5

This is the House that the Bank built

This is the House that the Bank built.
I
This is the pensioner
Who dreamt of the house that the bank built

This is the realtor who fooled the pensioner
Who dreamt of the house that the bank built

This is the fat cat who repackaged the loan from the realtor
Who fooled the pensioner
Who dreamt of the house that the bank built

This the hedge fund that turned the debt into a credit bought
From the fat cat who repackaged the loan from realtor
Who fooled the pensioner
Who dreamt of the house that the bank built

This is the Swiss institute that bought from
The hedge fund that turned the debt into a credit bought
From the fat cat who repackaged the loan from realtor
Who fooled the pensioner
Who dreamt of the house that the bank built

This is the Government that borrowed from
The Swiss institute that bought from
The hedge fund that turned the debt into a credit bought
From the fat cat who repackaged the loan from realtor
Who fooled the pensioner
Who dreamt of the house that the bank built

This is the country that gave credit
To the Government that borrowed from
The Swiss institute that bought from
The hedge fund that turned the debt into a credit bought
From the fat cat who repackaged the loan from realtor
Who fooled the pensioner
Who dreamt of the house that the bank built

II
This is the pensioner who can’t afford the interest
On the house that the bank built
In Little Paradise, Alabama

This is the realtor who forced the eviction
Of the pensioner who can’t afford the interest
On the house that the bank built
In Little Paradise, Alabama

This is the banker who put out of business
The realtor who forced the eviction
Of the pensioner who can’t afford the interest
On the house that the bank built
In Little Paradise, Alabama


This is the hedge fund that broke the
Banker who put out of business
The realtor who forced the eviction
Of the pensioner who can’t afford the interest
On the house that the bank built
In Little Paradise, Alabama

This is the Swiss Institute that collapsed
Because of the hedge fund that broke the
Banker who put out of business
The realtor who forced the eviction
Of the pensioner who can’t afford the interest
On the house that the bank built
In Little Paradise, Alabama

This is the government that was finished
Because of the Swiss Institute that collapsed
Because of the hedge fund that broke the
Banker who put out of business
The realtor who forced the eviction
Of the pensioner who can’t afford the interest
On the house that the bank built
In Little Paradise, Alabama




This is China waiting to get paid from
the government that was finished
Because of the Swiss Institute that collapsed
Because of the hedge fund that broke the
Banker who put out of business
The realtor who forced the eviction
Of the pensioner who can’t afford the interest
On the house that the bank built
In Little Paradise, Alabama.

III
This is Mrs. Veronica Sunrise who bought the
House that led Greece to default...

While whiling my time

while whiling my time inside, with the tv on the backburner,
advertisements percolating, the wet towel drying itself on the radiator,
the offline laptop firmly shut up like a very tired clam, the hair dryer
encoiled around the foot of the Ikea sofa in conversation, books
in a state of utter deshabille, the cup from last night with mouth beckons
for more coffee, the bed almost tidy in the voice of a game show host
says, give him a round, didn't he do well, a tobacco stained ceiling light
sans bulb, looks like a ufo in a polaroid, while its compadre, a blue desk
top lamp in frozen state like a heron about to pierce some books
a tie from the waterworks, slung over the back of a chair, slips into a coat,
a domestic scene that states all too explicitly the deliverance from effort
Meanwhile, from outside, I hear the orchestra of the feathery friends
the blackbirds in a territorial spate, the machine gun rat a tat of titmice
wood pigeons from a conifer cornered by development, held at bay
by bungalows, coo their love songs, and seagulls scavage the sky
all of this, the inside and outside, blend into the morning utterance
that yes, I do exist, I really do, I really really do.