Johnny Cash

Hands move ‘cross piano
Like old man in love
With piano

Johnny cash 
     you popstar you,
Tell me of the west 
   you won
And the price
Down to last nickel
And dime store indian

Johnny cashed up for the night
His winnings 
  in desert shine
Of a sunbleached mirage.

Le Pigeon

from the bridge and safe we watched
as it flapped and struggled against mossy wall
and slow undulations
of tourist boat water’s swell
its chest all puffed up useless,
occasional pauses
to consider grave predicament
whilst the lovers of dancing puppets
stopped to laugh a kiss between lips
and concerned friends flew by
wondering when would be best
to pick the dead meat from its carcass.

Alexis 

The Cat Poems 1 - 2

        1.                          2.
          the moment                  a cat
          a cat dies                  lifts its head up
          it's found somewhere        out of doldrums
          else                        and makes
                                      a great
          head raised                 yawn
          from basket
          eyes waking from
          the dream

M P

existence in a thin band of dark and light

The view from this side is better. A rarefied air talking of memories that belong to no one. One car drove the lane up to the border and everyone got out. A boy and girl child stood tip-toed to see over the wooden fence into the stained glass fields iridescent in perpetual sun. Here it existed with absent father mother in a band of monochrome; the lives of other people so fascinating.

  Like high up from a plane the intricacies of countryside. 

Ancient people laid down dazzling tessellation for the future to postcard.

Colours swam in and around objects too numerous to list. Focus on one and it disappeared into another. Hopes and achievements skipped gaily through the spectral meadows but were tripped so callously by fears and tainted thought.

The boygirl perched precarious on a stile,

 transfixed by all that unravelled.

Father mother sat disinterested on the border of dark and light in order to play cards. Here the lane was bisected, two equal halves stretched out all around and meeting once again.

Now the boygirl suffered much anxiety as great grey monoliths came crashing onto the field patterns. An imposing court of carved opportunities (missed and taken) spread out in a circle.

 Infinity lay silent. Eternity watched through a mirror. 

The boygirl felt the eyes of all the quarrelling heads and some innate urge pulled from within. Here with trepidation steps on the delicate ground; a walk to the centre.

  Prepared perhaps for judgement. 

Alexis

Little 2.

    rain      more

   a part 

      of    garden growing


 

Unknown Quote 1.

       " . . .  a never ending postwar. 
        I, who had thought of ruins 
        only as the transmutation of 
        cityscapes, learned that ruins
        lie within people as well . . . "   

Little 1 .

  rain-fall 
            
         giggles at 

      good and bad

           parents   

M P

(untitled Russian translation)

When I lived in this world
And breathed this air,
I’ve done some things,
Not others, no, I haven’t;
I held my tongue and whined,
Squandered as well as saved some,
Tried to be brave, I scoffed, I cried
Yet salvaged nothing;
And now that I am dead,
Into matter transformed,
Not Kierkegaard or Buber, no one
Can explain to me why, 
What - they won’t tell me – for,
It’s seems too easy to ask why
I lived, and why I’d sit up in my bed
Suddenly awoken in the gloom of night…

Sergei Gandlevsky - 1995 

Translated by - Olia Grebenyuk 

we, the under-signed...

from Back to the Machine Gun issue 3

responding blow

Alexis Hercules

Φιλοσοφική Τραγωδία

Today I drank afternoon wine
raised up to mother who loves me
like no woman ever can
or could.

I thought of Greek gates 
and dancing alive in marble robes
           the philosophers so bent
over with too much knowledge
           excruciating on their heads
pulling in the curly fleece of beards
           they lean and need to rest
on the backs of beautiful young 
           boys skin
so fresh olive tan
           glistening with sweet salt sweat
and all that oil crushed
           straight from trees
           they break bread
           and dip it in
           soak sup enjoy
with clay jug of wine
and the rubber chew
of goat’s blessing.

Evening now in the drunken museum,
my temporary affection grips my arm,
and her finger traces body contours
of me and those
stoic statues.

He rarely spoke to me,
but adolescence brought a good man 
who told me everything,
and when I realised
mere existence is all,
I wept and carved this folly on the bust,
still reflective in his musty drawing room,
at the centre of daedal halls – 
carved from oak 
and daubed in deep olive green.

            Alexis Hercules