tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58598102616613727602024-03-14T04:10:59.025+00:00The Sound of FingersThomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-57013183191132805282013-05-13T13:28:00.000+01:002013-05-13T13:28:09.884+01:00Natural HistoryThe sign as an instruction, and not just in a physical sense: go up to the next floor, and you will see the insects: this commonish mayfly, ephemera danica: notice the constant: the vacuum: the airless fly, and danceless.<br />
<br />
In the next case: moths, melanised against the city: see how they disappear into the illness and health of a city: the dust of a city stacked in their pigments: dormant cancer.<br />
<br />
Think of the museum as a failed hospital where patients are left pinned in death’s-head mask: toys in a macabre toyshop.<br />
<br />
Open a row of identical drawers, one by one: a bee-eater, a brown rat, and, coffin-shaped, a barn owl on its back, preparing for dignity, eyes out.<br />
<br />
Stoat in summer, stoat in winter: side-by-side: russet and white.<br />
<br />
The shrew-box holds little slips of fur and skin aligned parallel, not topping-and-tailing: notice how small they look, and real: realer that when alive, and warm, and wild.<br />
<br />
Step out of the lift: remember, for some reason, your grandfather having TB: remember that the last time you came hear you had a cold: spat bloody brownish phlegm into the sink: ask yourself if people can even get TB these days: notice how someone has taken a red marker and drawn a deathly trickle on the off-white fur below the stuffed badger’s angry mouth.<br />
<br />
The same person, maybe, who took a tooth from the crocodile: for luck.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-33294833463505984822013-02-16T18:00:00.002+00:002013-02-16T18:03:37.960+00:00ForthHere’s an idea: let’s listen to the onset of spring<br />
with, perhaps, eyes closed. The sound is of<br />
an internal drip, you think. So, what’s the problem?<br />
There’s a grandfather clock in the hall<br />
that does this sort of thing all the time.<br />
We simply can’t sit still. There is newness in everything,<br />
and blondeness – the hinge of the white cupboard<br />
creaks, you know it’s brass but it will always be the gold<br />
of the best of <i>The Hay Wain</i>. Just can’t sit still. Much less<br />
the flowers, the intricate noses of daffodils<br />
that have no smell like a bad joke. The cape-like<br />
ears of spaniels. The city has drifted out to sea somehow<br />
like Arthur Cravan and has left nothing of itself<br />
except a pair of unused boxing gloves, a box<br />
of bad poetry and a beautiful, trite American wife.<br />
<br />
The smell of bus fumes can permeate sleep, sometimes;<br />
the trick is to lie on the pavement. What is more<br />
distinguished than that? The rain, when it comes,<br />
will bring everything you need to your nostrils.<br />
Thanks for being there whilst I have done this.<br />
It is nearly four o’clock, people. People<br />
are like posters of Che Guevara, the way they replicate.<br />
<br />
I have caused something to exist – and whilst he is<br />
blindish, or can see only in monochrome,<br />
he has the ideal tools to observe the arrival<br />
of house martins. Yes, sitting motionless is not<br />
a prerequisite of observance. Today, I have pushed<br />
a pram over bubbling stones, but I did not feel<br />
like a stream. The city returns in an MPV<br />
weaving through static sports cars<br />
in a way that reminds us inexplicably of salmon.<br />
<br />
It has always been spring. I cannot leave<br />
anything behind and I am going to have to learn.<br />
There are two ways this could go. We could open our eyes. <br />
Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-2821443917118222812012-10-23T20:58:00.001+01:002012-10-23T22:21:02.190+01:00The Girl in KolonakiWhat is it that makes the girl in Kolonaki such an excellent subject for a short story? Is it perhaps only this: that she is in Kolonaki but not from Kolonaki? That she is in fact not only not from Kolonaki but not from Greece at all? That she is from England, from a small town in England somewhere on the border of Kent and East Sussex and has come to Kolonaki, so she tells herself, not because it offers her any greater chance of making money in her chosen field but because she has a more developed sense of adventure than any of her peers, who all seem to be working in schools in impoverished parts of London or Manchester?<br />
<br />
Or is the girl merely an ornament? Is it the mother-of-pearl and orange coloured district of Kolonaki, self-centred, genteel but robust, that is the truly noteworthy protagonist? Does it matter if the girl has no idea that the district of Kolonaki is named after the little column that was erected there before even a single house was built on the area? Is it more important that Kolonaki’s shopping streets are among the best in Europe?<br />
<br />
Have you seen the column? What does it remind you of? Would it appear rude if I asked you to lie down on the couch? Does it remind you of a phallus, or is that just me? Were you subconsciously stimulated towards this phallic interpretation by the use of the word ‘erected’ in the previous paragraph? Or is the word ‘column’ enough on its own to do it for you? Doesn’t it strike you as odd that this two-metre rod of stone reminds you of a dick? Isn’t it strange that they call it the ‘little column’? Would you be surprised to learn that the author, at the age of 8, spent most of his free time in efforts to design his own spring-loaded mousetrap, or that all of his designs contained mazes or mirrors, and sometimes miniature traps within traps: guillotines made of razorblades, hidden doors, poison-tipped carpet tacks? <br />
<br />
Is it stating the obvious to say that the reason the girl in Kolonaki is in Kolonaki and not Kent or Sussex is because she was running away from something or escaping something or fleeing something? Is it for this reason that she is just glad to be in this warm, blind part of Athens with other English speaking families? That she hasn’t bothered to learn the language, or find out a little bit about the history of her new home? Does she realise, and does it even matter to her, that Kolonaki and its giant stone dick, its sapless six-foot totem, are infinitely more important than her interchangeable new friends? <br />
<br />
What is it that the author has in mind when he asks if the girl is really only an ornament? Is it to devalue her? Is it an attempt to devalue her by making her seem less important than an upmarket area of a capital city of a country the author has never been to? Is the attempt to devalue her flawed by the very fact that he has taken the time to write about her, and in doing so admitting her importance to him?<br />
<br />
What is she doing in Kolonaki? Is this question a sign of the author’s continuing interest in her? Or his growing interest in Kolonaki? Or is it simply a way to introduce the girl, or the streets and squares of Kolonaki? Does the girl frequent the tavernas and ouzeries? Does she support AEK or Panathinaikos when they come up against English teams in European football? Does she spend her evenings indoors or on a terrace writing letters to her friends in England on paper she bought from one of the posh artisan stationers in Kolonaki, letters that are essentially lies, letters that talk about the sun, the pollution, the pleasantness of the Greek family she works for, but in reality tell the reader nothing about Kolonaki or about Greece? Does she have a wastepaper basket in her room filled with letters not sent, letters screwed up, letters she is embarrassed to read back to herself because of their frankness or their duplicitousness? <br />
<br />
Is there an end to this story? Or should that question be, ‘How can the author reconcile himself with the girl in Kolonaki?’ And what is the meaning of the dick-like structure that towers, hard but impotent, over the story? Does it represent the idea of a resolute, single-minded Mediterranean mindset that has been embraced or partially embraced by the girl in Kolonaki, but cannot be embraced by the author, the flaccid English author? Can you answer questions put to you by an English author who spent his childhood poisoning mice? And how would you make him hear the answers? Is it possible for a question to be the truth? What would you say if I showed you a picture of the girl in Kolonaki, a photograph in which she appears to be drunk, with a group of people roughly her age, some English-looking and some Greek-looking, some with football scarves? And if, in that photograph, she has her arms locked around the stone column as if it is a living thing, as if it is a favourite tree or person, would you believe anything you hear? <br />
Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-20355163681077608002012-07-16T18:42:00.001+01:002012-07-16T18:42:15.957+01:00VisitI came back armed with a list of films<br />
I wouldn't mind seeing again<br />
<br />
The Usual Suspects<br />
On the Waterfront, Casablanca<br />
<br />
Because there's no way two people<br />
can sit and write poems together<br />
over popcorn and cans of Ringnes<br />
and in the window of a long weekend<br />
<br />
I have sworn allegiance to port cities<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Here is a poem called <i>Poem for Beggars</i>:<br />
<br />
<b>scatter!<br />
</b><br />
The girl digs heels in at this,<br />
a boat in dry dock<br />
<br />
She has had better and can wait<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
On the waterfront two days later<br />
she catches sight of an act of cannibalism<br />
<br />
a herring gull puking in reverse<br />
<br />
There it is, she says, there<br />
is your poem, you have what you came for<br />
<br />
now go, before you miss your flight<br />
<br />
<br />Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-50447707940545169032012-07-09T18:42:00.004+01:002012-07-10T17:21:29.084+01:00The Invention of PoetryWhen the scream dies<br />
there is nothing left:<br />
not the letter x or a windblown tree<br />
<br />
only men riding<br />
in the black back seats<br />
<br />
and women draped over bonnets<br />
habitually<br />
<br />
<br />
It can happen, say, at 25<br />
or at 19<br />
but it's not like a typical urban suicide<br />
<br />
it can happen out on dusty roads<br />
or wet roads<br />
<br />
<br />
I came up with a ghastly invention<br />
and saddled it with matter<br />
<br />
Watch the poet, don't listen<br />
<br />
His feet are moving on the stage<br />
like someone who lurks beside<br />
wet roads<br />
<br />
his hands are shaking but that was years ago<br />
<br />
<br />
I lived in a house with my mother and father<br />
I brought old women back<br />
Holy fucking shit<br />
<br />
My mother and father invented poetry<br />
in the 1970s<br />
<br />
every single liberal or Neil Young fan<br />
invented poetry in the 1970s<br />
<br />
<br />
So the women who employ the girls<br />
who serve me with coffee<br />
have all experienced the vital terrifying death<br />
<br />
Poetry is a thing that wipes memories<br />
You must wear dark glasses and leather<br />
and learn to drive or open your legs<br />
<br />
It is the only way to survive<br />
when the last scream<br />
has uprooted trees and fucked everythingThomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-29984264360538010332012-06-30T10:41:00.002+01:002012-06-30T10:41:59.783+01:00Edvard Munch's MadonnaA few days ago I ordered a cheap print of Edvard Munch's <i>Madonna</i> and today it came in the post. I took some time getting it out of the cardboard tube, relishing the potential creative inspiration it would give me. I thought that my thoughts on seeing the poster would be, like the painting, divine, pure and honest on one hand and modern, willful, strange and passionate on the other. But when I unrolled the <i>Madonna</i> I thought first of Madonna, the singer, and this made me think of the music video of hers which involves a bullfight, and this made me think of Hemingway, writing his balls off about bullfighting, and Hemingway made me thing about the Deux Magots, where he did a great deal of writing, and this in turn made me think about my impending trip to Paris, which I am looking forward to but am also somewhat apprehensive about because it will cost me a lot of money and I haven't got a lot of money - I am essentially poor, certainly too poor to make a habit of buying art prints just so that I can look to them for inspiration.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-13832655434949664752012-06-30T10:19:00.000+01:002012-06-30T10:20:20.093+01:00The Poet Geoffrey Hill and the Poet Jeremy PrynneIn a city - let's say Cambridge; in fact, let's pick somewhere more neutral, Coventry for example - the supporters of the poet J.H. Prynne decided to erect a giant statue of their hero, a statue that would dwarf the city's cathedral, a bronze statue with a high forehead and an unfathomably muscular torso. Of course, when the supporters of the poet Geoffrey Hill heard about this they decided to erect a similar statue, also in Coventry, to match the gigantic statue of the poet J.H. Prynne.
The tall statues faced each other over this cowering city that had been destroyed and rebuilt comparatively recently. The opposing factions were proud of their statues, but they were also envious of each other. Of course, arguments broke out, then the odd limp-wristed skirmish, and after a while, without knowing how it had happened, the two groups of poetry-lovers discovered that they were officially at war.
Nothing happened for a while, but what could have happened was this: a renowned wise man - the type that still existed in the Midlands at the turn of the century - came to the city and called a meeting between the leaders of the two groups. In his wisdom he told them to give up on their bitterness and envy and learn to like, or at least to appreciate, or at the very least to respect, the poetry of the opposition.
Of course, the berserk captains of the factions fell upon him and destroyed him as he attempted to leave the cathedral. Their bloodlust was sated; they forgot their poetry and went back to teaching creative writing classes.
But that didn't happen. The war is still going on, though no-one has yet died. On the upturned palm of the poet Geoffrey Hill sits a sniper, his rifle trained through a crack in the poet Geoffrey Hill's fingers onto a spot somewhere on the poet J.H. Prynne's groin, where it is believed there is a secret door, behind which the supporters of the poet J.H. Prynne are said to be hatching a plot, although no-one knows what this plot might be.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-82265055129570501712012-04-10T16:05:00.002+01:002012-04-10T18:38:47.675+01:00Ironing is Equal To or Greater Than JazzHe is in the living room, writing and listening to a critically acclaimed jazz record from the mid-1960s. She is in the kitchen, ironing and watching a popular primetime hospital drama on her laptop. During the short periods of silence between tracks he can hear the programme through the closed door – they have a cheaply rented flat and the doors are thin, little more than plywood. After a while he becomes aware that she has turned the sound up on the hospital drama – he can hear dialogue through the quiet parts of the compositions. A nurse says, ‘Ready?’ and a man groans. Another nurse is chatted up and then threatened by a doctor, and so on. At one point during a searing trumpet solo he hears a screech of tyres and the sound of glass smashing. He is a little annoyed, as she has told him that the reason she is using the kitchen rather than the living room is to give him some peace and quiet while he works. ‘Peace and quiet’ was the exact phrase she used. He thinks he would be well within his rights to go and ask her politely to turn it down, particularly when over the top of a lengthy, trumpet-led ballad he can hear people being dragged from wreckage, the wheels of stretchers on concrete, screams of jobbing actors. But he doesn’t get up. It’s not really distracting him that much. He has nearly finished the first draft of a short story and doesn’t want to interrupt his flow with the mild altercation that would inevitably follow if he were to speak to her. And, he thinks, if he can hear her TV programme, she can probably hear his jazz, and would therefore be equally entitled to ask him to lower the volume. Besides, he is writing and she is ironing. She is ironing his shirts for work because he can’t make enough money from writing to enable him to quit his crappy job, and he is writing a short story in which she appears as a character. These facts instantly give her the moral high ground. He thinks, what kind of person would do that? What kind of person would ask his girlfriend to turn the sound down so that he can listen to a once ground-breaking but now slightly anachronistic jazz recording whilst she is ironing his clothes and he is using her against her will?Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-80329709628281402492012-02-24T17:16:00.001+00:002012-02-24T17:18:34.515+00:00Im Visits the North Pole - excerptsIm throws open<br />windows<br />so that any<br />sunlight trapped<br /><br />can escape before the year<br />turns dark and small<br /><br />*<br /><br />Of course Im encounters<br />death every day.<br /><br />She removes a glove<br />to stroke a live<br /><br />damp nose – <br />a huge husky perhaps<br /><br />*<br /><br />Between sheer walls<br /> a joust<br /> of narwhals<br /><br />whisk through icing<br /><br />*<br /><br />Im lurks below<br />the treeline.<br /><br />Everything is fur<br />and bristle and ire <br />– cries of owls, irks.<br /><br />In the starkness of <br />perpendicularity<br />Im inspires a religion<br /><br />of trees<br />whose spires<br />seek to bend<br /><br />whose dead<br />limbs and needles<br />are her pyres<br /><br />*<br /><br />There is another.<br />Im salutes a furred<br />human face<br />over tundra,<br />young and<br />unfolded.<br />A moon<br />inside a boat.<br /><br />He traverses the rink<br />of tundra. Im <br /><br />writes her name<br />in the snow, sees<br />a bare tree<br />and two mountains.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-77657112530732994982012-02-03T17:13:00.000+00:002012-02-03T17:15:35.595+00:00Im Visits the South Pole - excerptsIm listens for the babble<br />of internal organs, hers – <br /><br />hearts, hot intestines<br />and suchlike.<br /><br />Her bones are the ice<br />sculptures of Erebus<br /><br />*<br /><br />The sun a ring <br />– tambourine and cornet<br /><br />the salt snow bakes.<br />A crust<br /><br />and a cauldron<br />cone and rotunda<br /><br />belly of breath<br />Im skims off – <br />fat off milk<br /><br />*<br /><br />Im plays at witching<br />forges molten snow<br />into a cat-shape<br /><br />a grotto, grove of folded<br />paper animals, Im speaks<br />with her fingers<br /><br />to annihilate them <br /> unfold<br /><br />*<br /><br />A fold is an irrevocably<br />straight line<br />where white sheep live,<br />Im thinks <br /><br />*<br /><br />Snow like sand. Im<br />luxuriating, eyes closed,<br />loses her toes in itThomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-41919100785241915962011-12-20T16:21:00.001+00:002011-12-20T18:11:55.747+00:00For Malena Mörling, ‘Standing on the Earth among the Cows’There is a cow in the field. Madly,<br />just one, and a docile lady at that.<br />Underneath she is full and bored.<br />She feels that there is a breathing<br />on the other side of the fence.<br />She stops to drink a can of Coke<br />before plunging her nose – which <br />is like cold wax – into the night air.<br />I eat some grass and spit<br />like a cowboy of dubious morals<br />in an otherwise black and white<br />film. There is no shooting star,<br />no slight twinge in the spine<br />of the earth. One of us gets<br />into the car, but does not drive away.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-6500679502539766882011-12-20T15:31:00.004+00:002011-12-22T14:35:24.017+00:00In Bergen Harbourstalls fill with<br />a day’s haul, a range<br />of little clown mouths<br />all pointing upwards<br />to catch salty rain – it helps<br />me to think about you<br />and I have to laugh<br />because your love is great,<br />European, pan-European,<br />Germanic or Hanseatic<br />and the mouths are tiny<br />and small like a harbour<br />mouth or a choir.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-38097543448048392392011-12-19T17:56:00.006+00:002011-12-20T15:42:39.791+00:00Two Poems from Norway<strong>Finse #1</strong><br /><br /><em>From the Bergen-Oslo Train</em><br /><br />A wooden hut <br />is a small thing.<br />There are stones<br />bigger. Inside a train<br />is a warmth made<br />by the train.<br /><br />A wooden hut <br />has none of its own<br />power. You have<br />to walk, to collect<br />and cut and burn<br />to give it power.<br /><br />There are no trees,<br />only the yellowing tongue <br />of Hardangerjøkulen,<br />and turf for warmth.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Finse #2</strong><br /><br />A wooden hut is <br />a mathematical symbol<br />meaning something like <br />equal to or less than<br />but with added pride,<br />or an outward display<br />of class-consciousness. <br />It is the first of many <br />such symbols that can be found<br />on the squared hillside.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-34132673772556972462011-07-22T23:48:00.002+01:002011-12-20T15:41:02.643+00:00Ways to Learn About a New CityGo it alone. Look at the buildings: the last time you were here they were wet and the local stone shone like so many bleached bars of coal tar soap. Lie to the waitress; don’t let her in on it, on the horrific and degrading fact that you are on a day trip from a town less beautiful than hers. Tell her that you live here but work away. Tell her about the your little garden apartment and the story of how you rescued the kitten and how it was attracted to your kitchen when you played Aztec Camera whilst washing up and how it like you doesn’t much care for The Who even though your ex loved them. But only tell her at the right moment, when the occasion arises, shall we say. Do the research. Tell her you are writing a restaurant review for the local paper, the Chronicle or whatever it’s called. Show her your Parker pen. Ask her if she knows if there’s anything going on in town tonight. If you do manage to get her to go out with you, make a point of explaining to her that you can’t get that drunk, you’ve got to finish the review. Make sure you buy her the first drink, but that’s obvious, right. And if you go somewhere not too dark where all her friends are drinking, offer them a drink too. Try not to go somewhere your ex might go. But she wouldn’t, of course, because she lives in another, shabbier town. If it was still dry outside when she finished her shift, and if you’re clever, you would have made sure you walked her through the last of the sun. To the botanical gardens, maybe. You would have pointed out the interesting trees like they were old friends. Maidenhair, corkscrew hazel. You would have said that you once got locked in here, slightly tipsy, and had to spend the night under the spreading arms of some fir. Lie, basically. Get drunk by about ten o’clock so you’ve got an excuse when your review doesn’t appear in the next couple of days. Tell her that the last time you were here it pissed with rain, then realise that you’ve almost given the game away. Make certain that she is aware of the fact that you have been working away for some time, and this is your first night back in the city. Call it ‘the city,’ as if it’s yours. Don’t call it by its name. Know how to cover your back, even when you’ve had three pints of Belgian lager, a bottle of wine and uncounted sambucas. Then, inexplicably, tell her that you’re lying to her, that you are really from Swindon and only got on the train because you were going mental with boredom on your day off. Hopefully by this stage she will take pity and you will wake up next to her blonde student smile and ask how to use the toaster. If not, go back to the botanical gardens, climb over the fence, find a place where tramps have been but not too recently. Or even better, attempt to climb into the low limbs of the maidenhair tree – but don’t make the mistake of thinking of them as tresses – and learn to live in the boughs. You will get to know the city soon enough, I assure you.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-53691425404788120472011-07-21T22:57:00.003+01:002011-12-20T15:43:58.222+00:00And MirrorsWithout the town the silver exterior <br />would just be a flood plain.<br />The girl with the hair makes<br />noises with her face and sees<br />them back again. This is where<br />I grew up. A loophole in a hill<br />a hundred and ninety thousand people<br />fell through. Under virtue, rising,<br />the torrid fleeting penance <br />of sitting down with the express<br />wish of getting smashed up.<br />Here we find low ceilings, swifts<br />roam above like little evils<br />and at night foxes shuck soft eggs<br />and dribble unseen up alleys.<br />Simply it is unlikeable, as if televised,<br />but you can’t see anything worth hating<br />in the night, drinking off the knowledge<br />of waking up to piles and periodontitis.<br />The whole town fancies itself<br />as none of its inhabitants are capable<br />of doing. It is its own looking-glass<br />and it directs the first sun<br />onto the nearest patch of grass<br />or lasers in on a pissed-up stag beetle.<br />In gardens later sobriety aches. <br />You know that moment when the latening<br />sky drains clear of swifts, and then they <br />all return, screaming and bunched<br />like cyclists? Well, it has happened<br />and the cats have gone indoors<br />and the next-door neighbour I thought<br />was gay is fingering some blonde<br />Nationwide girl half his age. Standing<br />on the garden table allows for a view<br />of the next town: imagine a multiplication<br />of images brought about by introducing<br />two reflective surfaces to each other,<br />slightly skewed like pissheads about to fuck,<br />and think of an infinite line<br />of not quite identical towns, and remember<br />getting your hair cut as a ten year old<br />on Radnor Street, Josephine<br />with the permed mullet positioning herself<br />behind you, asking if the back’s alright.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-47141155682833267182011-06-22T19:16:00.003+01:002011-12-20T15:48:09.776+00:00Poem about the Previous PoemAt the derelict end of <br />the day it fell to me<br />to preserve<br />something – a serial<br />number by which<br />an archivist can<br />locate an unpadded <br />drawer containing<br />scraped bones or<br />a photograph – b&w<br />obviously – of someone<br />who looks like <br />Louise Brooks<br />wrestling an incompetent <br />dance partner. Quickness<br />is passé now like<br />the gift of a rose – <br />instantaneousness is<br />where it’s at,<br />and the puking<br />of poems bulimically.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-84486338059593848602011-06-22T19:14:00.003+01:002011-12-20T15:49:25.646+00:00Latenessbeached<br />statements and unworn words. <br />the pleasure in watching <br />a dancer is in seeing<br />what is left behind – <br />what happens in the blur<br />of limbs in the microunit<br />of time after movement<br />has occurred. We once <br />watched an elm shiver<br />as starlings left it in the dusk.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-5270544289700247672011-06-20T22:03:00.003+01:002011-12-20T15:54:13.502+00:00Poem in 35.22 SecondsUnlate and full of coffee as <br />you arrive on the trembling<br />apex of the morning your <br />car bends sinews into<br />a temperate bay. Shells <br />and wrack and the pastoral<br />old flame of postcard<br />writing on the silt humpbacks<br />where dune-buggy eyes of <br />waders mark the sand screed.<br />Sensible and electric you find<br />in my hair a sea-washed grain<br />and remove it with a peck<br />of fingers. An insect purrs<br />and jumps inside the car.<br />You have my mouth and my day.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-3341550510556308342011-06-17T18:54:00.002+01:002011-12-20T15:56:03.630+00:00Poem in Ill-Fitting ClothesWalking in the vague <br />direction of a doctor’s<br />surgery or café in the old<br />town on a Friday lunchtime<br />is neither the time or place<br />to be thinking about<br />a power line or two<br />on a Welsh hillside but<br />there you go that’s what<br />happens I can never be<br />unashamedly urban like<br />Frank O’Hara or someone<br />because I can never be<br />unashamed I suppose<br />which got me thinking<br />about how the people who write<br />blurbs for the backs of poetry<br />books use the word unashamedly<br />as a synonym of resolutely<br />resolutely perhaps not in its <br />Heideggerian sense but even so<br />outside the hardware shop<br />an ignored row of brooms<br />what I haven’t decided<br />yet is whether or not <br />to go for a swim or<br />possibly to get drunk<br />and lift diligent pints and taste<br />toasted or even burnt<br />almonds for days afterwards<br />without really knowing<br />where they came from but<br />as I said still undecided<br />and the reply hasn’t come yet<br />that would decide for me<br />and if I sit in this<br />café until it does I will hear<br />this unknown cover <br />of Femme Fatale for a third time<br />it’s harder to see things in clouds <br />when they’re grey when they’re white<br />it’s easy and what is it with <br />this trend for sensible<br />shoes with fluorescent laces<br />it’s a kind of schizophrenia<br />suffered by waitresses I think<br />and I wonder can I <br />pinpoint the exact time<br />and place that writing a poem<br />became antonymous with work maybe<br />it was when I first started to work.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-13996352159869571522011-06-11T14:09:00.002+01:002011-06-11T14:19:49.768+01:00Rough CopyThe rain is not quite<br />English in its heat<br />and poise, and then<br /><br />a Filipino in a trucker's<br />hat shouts at a dog<br />and nothing is<br />shattered. The image<br /><br />of a tea clipper being dragged<br />through streets<br />in the old quarter<br /><br />of a proudly landlocked<br />city, not though as part<br />of a carnival. Navigating<br /><br />blimpishly with a wake<br />of indocile hoydens - <br />cafe girls without babies,<br />drab and emu-necked.<br />The trappings of perfection:<br /><br />zoos, massive ships<br />under telephone wires<br />disguised by bunting.<br />It has come to the attention <br /><br />of important men that<br />particles are mesmerising<br />the universe with beauty<br />and coincidence and leaving<br /><br />by the back door, as we shrink<br />to fit moulds. When you die,<br /><br />baby, it's rude<br />and careless not to take<br />somebody with you.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-40082523186820234272011-06-10T15:28:00.004+01:002011-08-09T10:25:08.713+01:00CarneddauDance of
<br />pylons. Sweat once
<br />
<br />gathered in our
<br />shared rills,
<br />surge and forge.
<br />
<br />The cold sign -
<br /><em>dim aros dros nos</em>.
<br />The rangy aborted
<br />
<br />dog of a prince
<br />still laps at
<br />
<br />these powerful lakes.
<br />Sisters, siskin
<br />appear only so far up
<br />
<br />and in the day. <em>Sage-
<br />femme</em>. A radio transmitter,
<br />a bent wire
<br />
<br />you have been
<br />unhooked from.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-85210681871974806492011-05-31T19:25:00.002+01:002011-05-31T19:30:55.055+01:00Petty OrnithologyThis park a tabula rasa where in any season <br />I have approached you you always see<br />in a man taking bread to a Canada goose<br />this particular type of on-edge trepid-<br /><br />ation, the quick drawing back of a hand<br />into a knot that has anticipated lunge<br />or at least fierce sneezing. The trigger<br />movements of fish catching themselves <br /><br />looking at themselves in the green<br />sunlight. My coot’s-nest a volcanic island<br />lair made, maybe, of torn-up blue magazines,<br />an eyeful of ice-lolly sticks on which<br /><br />the jokes have been worn funnyless by sheet<br />erosion. Your wing retains the head<br />you have snapped back and away from me.<br />An unnatural duck; egg-shaped body.<br /><br />Beak under feathers. Rival prams <br />stir up pigeons. Your reclusive eye<br />sets. Children dam a stream, a path – <br />scatter of unhealthy sticks. Primaries <br /><br />and other feathers. Mud; stalks. In time<br />an egg becomes a person, instantaneously.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-53665881557155473752011-05-20T12:09:00.006+01:002011-05-20T12:58:38.120+01:00A Tall BuildingIt was not known until then how much<br />a human day can be affected by a dream<br />of a tall building and the view of a town<br />that had not been experienced before -<br />there are pleasant areas of green, photoshopped<br />oaks, the smell of cricket where there was once<br />something else unremembered but clearly an ugly<br />symbol of a large urbanised population -<br />really it is this: a highly functional modern<br />skyscraper in the middle of an English village<br />and all that is beautiful about that. What<br />I also became aware of at that moment was <br />that I had never imagined you wearing pink,<br />or sleeping, or voting, or jumping. The building<br />is 80 storeys and the lift creaked a little<br />despite its German newness on the way up<br />to where you are wearing pink. There is <br />a touch of orange, which reminds me less <br />of the colour of salmon flesh and more<br />of the fact that I must finish the Lydia <br />Davis collection I have borrowed from someone<br />not in the dream. Oh, the things I could do<br />the things I could imagine doing to you <br />even in the creaking framework of a dream<br />where all I can imagine is subject <br />to the formal constraint of not-being-<br />awake. It feels like a tourist attraction <br />and an office at once. The conflicting strands<br />of being-awake (itself a constraint)<br />and not-being-awake converge in the needle <br />of a tall building. There are relatively <br />few Germans here. I wanted to practice<br />my vocabulary (Ich liebe dich. Noch. Immer.) But<br />in my dream you do not speak German<br />and my only three words are like a dirty<br />old man. You speak only in pretty wonky <br />binary sentences of one letter, or none.<br />One closed eye, or asymmetric eyes. A flatfish.<br />This one has no sound. I don't know if I can<br />dream in sound. The constraint of the unconscious.<br />It was being made aware that you enjoyed a second,<br />in the Spanish restaurant. But I don't think<br />it was said: rather hooked from the universe<br />or the universal. The fact is I still have this love<br />over you, in a way, and a dream reminded me of it<br />or made or remade it. I cannot paint,<br />or I would have travelled more. The tall building<br />is like a drill. The speckled country has fallen<br />all around it. But the Spanish restaurant <br />is in a different place altogether, not Spain<br />though. How in conclusion this particular constraint <br />has been enabling: in a state of being-awake you see<br />more often than not in the shapes of clouds the outline<br />of your own country. Because I can do this <br />to you, I will: evening she would see him typing with finger-<br />less gloves - less a riposte to the cold and more an accord<br />with the place that is a reilquary of sorts: a type <br />of space in which other spaces lie low and breed <br />slowly. When he couldn't write or think he invoked a dream<br />by inventing fantastical inept beasts: tailless lemurs<br />and toothless caimans and titless mastodons <br />and tongueless mosquitoes, or he would attempt,<br />knowing or hoping she watched him, a study <br />of the biological importance of asymmetry<br />in the narwhal tusk and the dolphin lung.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-69376502153988346752011-04-27T19:04:00.001+01:002011-04-27T19:09:05.043+01:00On Littlehampton BeachThe cuttlefish bone is deceitful. Not quite<br />like an iceberg and its tip, more like an atom<br />and its electron. There is a deadly serious <br />point to all this. I haven’t come down to the beach<br />just to sharpen my beak. You’re not a Piscean.<br />I can’t fathom why. My penny jaw dropped<br />into the fathomless – ridiculous – depths<br />and was washed stranded up white on the sea<br />sieve of stone. I am standing on a masoned ledge,<br />a created thing. An unforged gull carries <br />a pigeon’s off-white egg (the colour of cooked<br />albumen – we are prone to discoveries, moments<br />of discovery) in its beak. I have left behind <br />the forensic scalpel – the wind here is a soft<br />sphere (think of The Prisoner). What is all this<br />about? Your way with words, the truth in them<br />(I’ve never lived by the sea, so I had to come<br />and find out): what turned out to be delicate<br />abstractions and downright lies, like the sea<br />smelling of sea when it really doesn’t smell<br />of fucking sea, it smells of coffee beans, if anything,<br />or petrol fumes, or the station café where I write,<br />sabotaging a lineless notebook, a poltergeist.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5859810261661372760.post-27831990050163007622011-04-15T23:13:00.002+01:002011-04-16T10:04:49.804+01:00Reviewing Michael Longley's A Hundred DoorsAnd it felt right somehow,<br />spending four pounds eighty<br />on two coffees to give myself <br />time to finish his new book – <br /><br />the station filling and emptying<br />like a milk jug. There are many<br />shirts, ties, looks – they are <br />tolerating the violence, the stroppy<br />endurance of trains. Unsurprised<br /><br />to find itself indoors<br />under a dirty roof,<br />a pigeon cocks its ear<br />to catch a poem.Thomas Blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07682515460899162283noreply@blogger.com0