new draft
August 26, 2010
Prayer
Our Mother who art in oceans
Hallowed be thy scales
Thy seabed come
I will be done
On earth
As I was in water.
Give us our fishnets
And forgive us our dresses
As we forgive those
Who dress against us
And lead us not into starvation
But deliver us from diets
And shopping and surgery
Deliver us from Primark
And Cosmo and purgery
For ours is the longing
Of all generations
Ours is the wanting
and trying
and hoping.
Forever and forever
Our daughters of Hades
Forever and ever
Ours children of pages
Forever and ever
Our lady
Our ladies
Our men.
Amen.
Prayer
August 25, 2010
I’ve been working on the Venus Papers – a sequence of poems that take Venus, the Roman Goddess of love and beauty as their main protaganist. The poems when finished will hopefully make up the show I’ve been funded to write by Arts Council England. Eeek. This, I think, is the final poem in the sequence…
Prayer
Our Mother who art in oceans
Hallowed be thy scales
Thy seabed come
I will be done
On earth
As I was in water
Forgive us our dresses
As we forgive those
Who dress against us
And lead us not into starvation
But deliver us from diets
And shopping and surgery
Deliver us from Primark
And Cosmo and purgery
For thine is the fuck up
Of all generations
Thine is the wanting
To be a celebrity
Forever and forever
Our daughters of Hades
Forever and ever
Our lady
Our ladies
Our sisters
Our cousins
Our mothers
Amen.
Foot in Hand
August 4, 2010
As the violin breathes
I have never seen
so much beauty
This man is sitting in a silver chair
This woman is sat on it’s wheel like a stair
This woman is dancing on knees.
As the violin breathes
I have never seen
so much beauty.
And nothing is said
They explain through their arms
Their bodies are movements
They move like they’re stars.
This man is a windmill
This woman a clock
This man is a preacher
This woman undone.
As the violin breathes.
There are eight of them.
They are running like prayers
They are wheeling through curtains
of silken black air.
There is ballet here
I have never seen
There is ballet here
shaking me clean.
As the violin breathes.
And if life was a dance
It would look like these people
pulling apart then melting like treacle.
And the music is saying
there isn’t much time
The music is saying
we’ve got to rewind.
This woman is dancing
she is dancing on knees
she is collapsing and rising
her fingers like leaves
As violin breathes
I have never seen
there is ballet here
there is such beauty
The Looking Glass
August 1, 2010
Some people hear words.
Some people hear sounds.
Someone speaks, an orchestra plays.
A dust cart sweeps, a choir raves.
Some people hear music
in sentences, music
in recipes,
music
in prayers.
And he is sitting in a bar
in the middle of the night
hunched over a keyboard,
knuckles white.
And words are keys on a pianos face.
Words are there in the falling rain.
Words are just sounds.
A women walking, is a saxophone
A piano playing is a tiny home
with the moon like a bone
and the sky like lingerie.
A nine bar blues
is a word like sex
repeated,
insistantly
And a riff is a dream
you can pack in a chest.
A score is sheet
pulled over a bed.
And the music has words.
A congo is chanting a name.
A trumpet is scatting a phrase.
A cello’s describing the shape of a neck
A saxophone’s saying it feels like a wreck
He’s describing the sound of a gin
describing the sound
of a women who’s watching.
Some people hear words.
Some people hear sounds.
And they hang in the dark.
And the night sings alone.