Shrapnel No.88

The rarefied, most alive
There's no need to deify
It's the way I see it in true
And I justify it too
Tell it straight up
I'm gonna subjectify you.

They must have told ya
It's in the eye of the beholder.
At your shoulder, cold how call girls
Can't hold a candle to you
So I hold a brush to canvas
There's no rush, and there's no
Kansas
It's yellowbricks and only us.

No need to mystify my intention for you
You can see it in my eye,
I'm gonna subjectify you.

Faraday might've kicked his cat

This knowledge did not come from God
This but single tapestry stitch

Made by flawed hands that broke edicts

This knowledge was made by humans.

The system made human minds

Inhuman. Without need for God

For grace or piety.

This knowledge is stained with slavery

Torture, war and sin.

There is no stitch in this rich picture
That bares a thread untouched by blood

This knowledge did not come from God.

Ode to the shit they utter

In an emergency
The blue lights flash, sirens and engines
Expensively assembled teams years in training
Rush to the scene.
Pour on as much water, see no expense spared
Get a helicopter up, the cost is who cares?

In an emergency
You put everything to one side
It's not time to do dishes or watch the paint dry
It's not business as usual, take it all in your stride
With that emergency response
You find people died.

Swifts

If they gave swifts a sky trail

That is how i'd like to write
Or hand washing on river rocks
That is how.

And if I've been unfair

To you, to me, to pages

It is in naming this infatuation.

When to give its due

The muse is one type of love

It's true.

And if I've been unfair to love

It is to say

This is not the type

One needs. One needs

A weave of loves like sail rope

A chord, made from chords

Made from threads.

This ink is just one thread

And I would write like swifts instead.

Santa-Claus doesn't wear a crown

There's always been relations
By folk across nations

Scientists and artists
In horse and carts didn't start this.
Erasmus' letters were not the first
Jean-Claude Juncker, far from the worst.

Just as artists will make art
Scientists shine light

Troubadors come with music and fun
Powerful people muster swords and guns
And relate through fights.

But it's bedtime
Four seconds from midnight.

Kenwood at Christmas

Out from repeated fractal grey

The falling licks of yellow flame

Burn brown the fronds of earthen brains
And all the years whares
Laid in carpet on the floor.
The blue has gone and slowly
Yellow turns to brown and grey
Leaving lignen tributaries
Stretched in awe up to the rain.

This a time of furs and scoured grass
The rasping wind in lupine howl
It barely takes a gasp. They will fish carp

Carve turkey and the year's fat from goose
The flames are burning now

These named benches of no use.

In honour of Theresa May's deal

And where Cassandra?
Not since Troy tasked men

To pull the wooden horse

Within its gates

Has such statecraft taken place.
Auto-colonialism to rue and ponder
And facepalms for Cassandra.

Valentine

Let me at this time lie
Just for today.
Tell tall and wild tales
All the while a rose
Between my teeth
Today at least
Let me lie.

Forget didaction and analysis
The mirage oasis objectivity so illusory
In all illusion, lie wildly
And with passion, my rose
Between my teeth and talk
Of buttercups, pillows and home returns
Of roses, spring, covers and pillows
And beaches, peacocks and cake and stars
And cake and, pillows and clouds
And let it all seem true.

So just this one day you may know
How much I always love you.

The 12.51 to Preston

Sitting in a rickety

White conservatory in Leeds
Talking to an umbrella plant
About zen philosophy,

The twelve fifty one to Preston
Is this what the world expected.

The recovering man sits
On the phone to benefits
Poison fossilised in grey snakes
The mill's curse, scarring these hills,
Gap toothed half literate crack piping

Meat packer stamps his feet in threat

Stowed crow bar in the back pack

For opening doors, the politic

Is this what the world expected.

Make a bare room a seminar

Who's doing the throttling and how

The proper method of crop rotation

Palid, with a handsome visage

Rarely visited by smiles

One of his eyes wanders, the son

Oh him, with the racist Staf.

There are no songs

Of how the steam milled killed

This wet aired town.

Is this what the world expected.

After two shifts the soldier will return

From taking all of the five kids to Mosque

Ferry the recovering man for cash

Like basket weavers who borrow cane
Horror dawns over his jaw on the stair

Witness now to the impotence of serfs

Alone with the pots

Is this what the world expected.

Crack concrete to fit fresh pipe

Shift grit in sacks and back

For aggregates till the clock matches

All of that sweat
To cut the ageing radiators out
And create something better
Wait, for the fruit fly to drink
Gas off the fresh ink

Is this what the world expected.

Sitting in a rickety

White conservatory in Leeds

Talking to an umbrella plant

About zen philosophy

Is this what the world expected of me.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

I tell you they're coming

They're coming they are

With bulldozers like tidal waves

Voracious steel jawed monsters

That crave to encase our community

In concrete, feast

And block out the sun.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

I've been here for ten years.

Me twenty.

Me since sixty four.

I was here afore all yee in misty days of yore.

I was here when the shops were nice

Before people came to score.

I was here afore all yee in misty days of yore.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

We intend to build a series of skyscrapers

That will blot out the sun,

Saddle the council with debt

Take the money and run.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

The alternative to a festering turmite mound

That will devour the suffocated heart of our community,

An army of atomised worker cells

Shedding anonymity to lubricate the path

Of thieves and men of bad affections;

Is a collectively constructed

Constructively created, all purpose

Purpose built Shangrila.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

I am diverse, I

Represent diverse people

We speak with one voice.

We are diverse here

And they want to build the same

On diverse people.

We diverse people

Need space to be

More diverse within

This community.

If we do not have space to be diverse

We cannot remain the same.

We hope that other

Diverse people will join us

And be diverse too.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

Hello, I'd like to declare my interest

In a collection of ideas, ideals

That everyone thinks they'd like to believe

And feel quite good with tea and soft focus.

Hello, I'd like to declare that I'm drunk

And the chair of the club

That wouldn't rub shoulders

With you, the community.

Hello, I'd like to declare that I'm sent

From the infamous armies of Satan

We've got pictures and papers

On you and your offspring

And we're waiting,

To integrate input from you,

The community.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

The picture you see before you

Has no sharp edges,

The colours represent

A very fashionable choice by Arturo

Who did the Auto CAD.

As you can see from the map

There are many spaces

That could be filled with a diverse range

Of hope and energy

Please all imagine

Something that you would like to see

Say “mmmmmm”

And forget the desperation on the doorstep.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

Please disperse with military efficiency

Into groups of relevant proficiency and expertise.

Assemble your blueprints in two blinks on post its,

Please keep the yellow and green ones separate from pink.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

Wouldn't it be nice to have some nice things.

Yes.

Other places have nice things, it could be nice.

Yes.

This is nicer than the other place I was.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

I mean where they going to put it all ?

Where you going put all of them ?

If you put them there,

Where you going to put

All things you have to put

When you put things places?

Where they going to put it all?

It won't fit.

And who put em up to it?

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

I need something for what I do

People like me, they do too

We could do something for what I do

I like doing what I do.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

You call this business,

Strung out hairdressers, beauticians and fried chicken

I'll buy a flat and you'll feel me pissing

From a great height.

I'm drunk and I don't give a...

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

Space is love

The love of this community

Concious of its beating heart

Seizing this transformational opportunity

To reaffirm tradition with a new start.

We can build something beautiful

With all the voices at the table

Open up the arena
For an eco-equitable, enabling eco-system

Of interactions symbiotically structured

To be systemically symmetrical celebrations

Of space as love.

Things I didn't hear at the meeting

Why don't we just chip in and buy them out.

Pass round the hat, get busy

Will have a few hundred mil in a couple of minutes.

If there's any left in the pot

We can give it to married, mortgaged middle-aged

White men because they don't seem to get a lot.

But we could build a tower block.

Yes, we could build a tower block

That's exactly what Tottenham needs

Another tower block.

So often it would come to this

And then it would come to this
Some wide road, empty and orange
East of the known world and alone
This is like that.
Carrying the valuables
Fielding unsuitables
Adding another ladder rung
Nut to the scaffold
And then some unknown road
Not long from morning
Gone missing
So often it would come to this.

He was a sensitive child with his own mind
Even when he could crawl
He'd show boredom with coeing adults
Turn his long thick torso to the grass
The probation officer fell in love
That bored him
A love that needs the valuables carrying
Hands too small
For any oedipal shield
Or sword
The archetypes we learn
Are not our own. Formative
Chinese whispers and trauma.
So often it would come to this.

His grandmother said
"Welcome to Africa"
Opened the door on a whitewash room
Just large enough for the inch thick mattress
In the morning she drove me to Robben Island.
I never saw her happier
And then sent me on, out to Observatory.
They said his granddad jumped off a block
In Angola, when the revolution was won
After he had bitten tears,
Blessed improper funerals
Seen the fruit
That grew from high ideals.
So often it comes to this.

Teardrop haiku

All teardrops are salt
Salt water is poison to soil
It sterilises.

Requiem for human flourishing

You can't tell what we've lost

Her, drowned in the Med

With all the secrets that she held in her head

All of those things she could have said

The machines that could've come from her fingers.

There's no way to count the cost

He could have been writing like Rowling

But belt tightening and frightened of howling wolves

He goes begging

While Dem Belly Full.

There's no way of knowing.

That kid growing without folic acid

And he sits his SATS but behaviour erratic

Cos his mum is attacked by the panic

In sweeping up bread crumbs.

Attachment deficit. Label him, dumb.

We lost an Einstein illiterate

We lost another itinerant

We lost another at the border with no visa

Because his skin didn't fit

There's a cost to us all

No way of counting it.

To the confused (spoken)

They been confused by J.Edgar Hoover
Y'all gangster, movers and shakers
The music that your chains make for your abusers
The crackers. Ya Babylon. Vampire Squid
Pickney tricked the road to nick is paved in riches
Reinstitute the slave trade in weak minded bitches.

Man tell me they need crime to write a bar
I'm like ra-ra-ra, go bath in tar
Roll your self in feathers
Lock your own hands in chains
Since the sixties and Nixon J.Edgar Hoover had your brain.

II.

Why you think they shot King
Black fame?
Or because he was a messiah preaching peace
In rhythms of the King James.

Call it all jive
Farrakahns a racist and he's still alive.

Drowning horses

Washed hollow and prone

Frayed bridle cut through palm to bone

Beside this bedraggled, exhausted nag

Our breasts both rise like hills and sag

Its tongue lolls from sandpaper throat
On lake shore where clouds of pennies float

With heavy heart I exert these forces

I have been drowning horses.

Sure enough, in comfort lead

It whinnied not in those first treads

With husband hand I grasped the tack

We strolled in peace along the track

For sure this beast does have a thirst

With eyes to sky I ask what curse

For when I lead it to the lake

It just stands and stares and waits.

And though some may find other courses

I have been drowning horses.

Sticky eyed with foam flecked lips

It will not stoop to take a sip

Despite running sweat in beating sun

Ne'er spoons its tongue in proffered tun
I'll take a pale and douse it down

Careworn, it just stamps and frowns

So I wrest the bridle with all my thunder

And pull the damn fool's head right under

It is not without a grave remorse

I have to drown this horse.

How we thrash and flail like alligators
And draw a crowd of awed spectators

As in struggle we rise and fall

Making fountains and waterfalls.

I heard you can lead a horticulture

But can't make vegetables think
And you can lead a horse to water

But you can't make it drink.

I will apply my unconventional resources

I have been drowning horses.

Washed hollow and prone

Frayed bridle cut through palm to bone

Beside this bedraggled, exhausted nag

Our breasts both rise like hills and sag

It's tongue lolls from sandpaper throat
On lakeshore where clouds of pennies float.

The critical question

There has been some fuss
Over the referendum, EU withdrawal
Schengen schenanigans
Other addendums
The proper question for the body politic
These are not.
The proper question is
#BunDemHowHot?

Wax, Petrol, Bottles and Rags

Wax, petrol, bottles and rags
My doubt in dhotis doubles
Trouble. Cartier cartels like Bolsheviks
Parasite this Empire's sunset
Sunset on the senate, quarterised Agora
Centuries since Tom Paine's tree transplanted
Tankers and satellites bring Ash Die Back
The Old Lady knocked the rafters from the house
This shack a sty,
Pigs plastering edits on the walls
Deifying myths of our perfection
This church takes more than Tithe
Thrives on human sacrifice

The pragmatic response?
Wax, petrol, bottles and rags

Turkeys balloted on Christmas or Thanksgiving
A needle in the neck
To paralyse the body politic, ancient medicine

Pump oil to the furnace planet
Till giants corner the ring,
Regulation as usual, business in digital.
A stitch in time saves nine
So they stitch and they stitch
Alibis over the crimes, wool over the House
A douse of paraffin is a sure cure for louse
Stockpile in case of
Disaster capitalist frags
Wax, petrol, bottles an rags.

I used to gaze at castles

I used to gaze at castles

And dream you'll understand

Their high stone walls

Pennants and armies at command.

My battle voice so rarely used

On illustrated plates

I used to gaze at castles

Think of all within their gates.

At Harlech, where the castle stands

The sea has fled

A golf course and a camp site
Sit in the harbour's stead

I dreamt how ships came into port
With mutton and with mead
Just thirty men to hold the fort
Was all that they did need.

There is no call for castles now
Walls just well built memories
That make this tourist town
There for all to see.

Caricatured in knights and wars
Moores of legend and of magic
I used to gaze at castle walls
Never knew a siege so tragic.

Things not to say on Tinder 42.

Oh sweetest Seraphim
Arc bright lamp so luminous
I've been off a-foraging
Through this landscape so voluminous

This landscape where
Your message raised me
So high above the penguin crowds
With butterfly net and razor
I have been picking clouds.

Searching only for the sweetest
Not the over-ripe and weepy grey
Those fluffy white with crispy tops
Not whispy ones that float away.

I picked vanilla cirrus, apple stratus
All the Cherry cumulus I'm able
Even Wasabi alto-stratus
To lay upon your table.

I cup them all in ramikins
Juggle the crop for all I'm worth
Until your thought evaporates
And I return to earth.

More must die

More must die
This battle not enough
My lord in wrath unquenched
More must die.

Though on these acres souls
Like stubbled fields of straw have fallen
Those callow tender sprouts misguided blow
Like flakes of ash upon the wind
More must die.

Though my footprints inked in blood
Ankles lapped in crimson tide of sacrifice
Breeches soaked in spleen and fluids as I wade
More must die.

A legion will not quench
Like starved hounds bays ire unsheathed
Though lit pyres sicken the morning sky
More must die.

Till artisans replace the forest with bones
And build cathedrals of skulls to placate my Lord
More must die.