Drinking Lament

Drink this up, before you leave me
Consider what I have said.

Be careful on your way
Drink and be merry whilst you can,
Pay no mind to those left behind
Do not be pushed off course.

Drink this up, before the ship sets sail
I’ll tie knots in this kerchief
Thinking of your hair in the wind.

Drink and fall around if you must
Just remember what I said,
Cut deep salt wounds.

Drink, Drink to your heart’s content
I’ll still be waiting by the window
Too far from the harbour to catch a glimpse.

Drink the sea spray Drink the wind
Think no more of me beyond
What I asked you to remember, but
Drink will make you forget
Of this I am sure
My request rendered pointless, but I knew.

Drink in the view
As the bow dips violently – sway, crash
Unseen rocks are approaching, still
Drink over ice, the cracks and splinters
I’ll wait by the window for word
Whilst your hair tangles with seaweed, barnacles on bones.

Drink this up, before you leave me.



Alexis

Alexis

the return...

(she don't move no more)

Culture Growth

I mock you all too frequently,
            if to bless is to endorse
            to this I prescribe
            all my earthly possessions
     (which)
     become nought in the light of expansion –
from here to there
across land borders
erected in jest

          when drunken ancestors kicked the ball
          of others
          into far flung fields – 

whilst mother carved the turkey
father carved the land, and still
                               babybaby,
                               by the fire
                               eyes ablaze with all to come – 

the endless murder
                 unblinking,
                        a pick at the carcass,
quadruples his luck in gambling halls
paid for sexual experience
before commencing mass extermination

like dandelion seeds catch cut
                        summer breath
          he too will grip the throat
                          of the closest,
                                         poorest,
                                             most vulnerable –
          spit in their faces,
  mock them instead.


Alexis

kenshin sumitaku saint poems 7, 8

7.                                                
 every object being something to write of          
 but the words are only a silly broke line         
 as the eye gets heavy,                            
 as the object is moved,    
 as the eye is myself, but I cannot see it, me     
 the things to write of                            
 this curtain                                      
   had I strength
     would open                                    
                                                   
8.
 yes    stop
the boundary, that means
 no motion

 this barely an
 end    a
 begin  being

 made to renounce
 I
 make   do 

(car / east)

I enjoy being a passenger in your car,
first climbing through gates
to touch the faces left back where we started – 
interrupted by radio
                 dirty “programme of abuse”,
                 hear “systematic failures”  
                 question why no one
                                 stopped.

But home in the car I’m safe,
you drive I’ll watch
for all potential left by the roadside:
                 goods and services
                 ramshackle market stalls
                 old men asleep on straw
                 dogs scratching patterns 
                 dead masters;

the difference is telling
but we drive on in silence
perfecting beliefs only when we pause.

Radio reports “feral children”
doctors fed them full for asking in sign;
is emotion taught?

Straw beds appeal
but we continue the road,
                 driven mad
by no sleep.

Each day we kiss up quick to the dawn
and he looks at me –
                 licking dew off a cut lip;
“with occasional access” 
to desperations – 
thinking too much about progress
is to miss the truth
that you are driving
and I am watching.

At speed the windows are film reels
stretched out beyond sense – 
bands of colour differing in width.

Heard “everything is together”,
when the celluloid burns
we can stop
and think about what we have done
where we have come –
                 always refusing speech.


Alexis

Spare Me " * "

In this particular kingdom of the blind
the one eyed man is too busy
          shepherding to brace the reins
                of a king,

warding off the accidents of human traffic,
the stumbling patsies of misplaced trust,
another lusty collusion of genocide and fun.

               Yet a mile high above   
      in the flight paths of the blind
a stewardess advises her passengers 
                thus: 

‘At the command: brace! place your head
between your legs and 
           pray - or trust at least

for the plane is losing
            altitude fast         
                   &
we all may be obliged to acknowledge soon the moment 
         in which
even the Beautiful People 
         won’t be leaving
     good-looking corpses 

But in the locker above your head
you will find confirmation that

even the visually challenged
         will have every right
to have seen and not seen the fire at the end of the universe
           which the scriptures say 
will burn seven times hotter 
            than the sun.’

Ade Jackson

Spare Me

the vanity of those who seek to end history
by scorning the claims of the ghost story.

We who live by mystery 
have no business trespassing
on the last myths 
          of the blue universe.
 
Take the late mist of a dying princess:

the torrid blush, the fluttered lash
         the camera flash 
the visual challenge
         of the smoky glass;

the broken heart’s commodity.

The wounded driver a flame 
         in the eyes
of an astonished girl. 

(field of landmines   tiny legs   a mirage on distant sands)

We who live by mystery wait.
‘I’s cast open, eyes half closed
while the lights smoke in the tunnel
         and the car’s a wreck
the heart a brain 
                the palace shattered glass,

beauty shy of time.
                           *

Ade Jackson

"GATE"(7?.) (reiterate)

 shut in the brain and step  0   here was heaven at the first
 out,stop,down                     step - We thought about it
 it ends in rooms,I          .  and there was a car journey -
 put rooms here                    We ended that wondering is
 only running out by my         that anyway to go and thought
 own design,enclosures       .   a heaven would answer "Love"
 here,hear "bark" things        or a means, - means of "going
 hungry to clean up          .  or  any way,where         on"

"GATE"(6?.) (all at once)

away from a hallowed gate,        0              light, that
away again bigger                               funny thing?  
away from the gate or                                    fun
shocked to pieces -               3               to the end
light passes on the                             lightened up
real world                                    a mist, beauty
tulip, mildew, and                6      of a day after mist
all light passing through                         the ending

"GATE"(5?.)

lock in a system                    the bed as it
all loved things               appears in a dream
                             expansive, joined on
place the bed as it                     all sides
appears in                               by a bed
commotion under          5            impinges on
something                                   sweet
fed on loves                                   us

"GATE"(4?.)

      heaven by high                  infinite
      road                      dusty elements
      the magic                 about the head
      car                        of the driver   
      in the elements     4          
      the magic car       5            by hook
      how far ?           6       or crook the
      - the distance      7         long drive

"GATE"(3?.) (solo)

 a mass             0       a path
 of fuzzy problems          bodily
                             taken
                    3
 twin lip                      two
 tautly they
                    6
              #.(one added      on

"GATE"(2?.) (accompaniment to 1?.)

 "All the nonsense in the 0               or all
  world greater               the gummy branches
  than all the nonsense"  2        the body done
  the world                                   in
  milked                                added on
  him or his                             a thing
  bed                                   his body
  place                   7          peripheries

"GATE"(1?.)

 funny furnishings      0           exposure
 he would see           1 to all in the mind
 heaven                 2               
 as funny               3          makes way
 dreamy furniture       4             to all
 wavey lines            5
 moved it around        6            and all 
 a bit                  7                 or

a year past

(i)
This man's eye sockets protrude
their ridged roundness showing everyone the view held
by all chimpanzees
barking laughing
from high jungle branches.
He shuffles with red ribbon scarf against winter's teeth
and the hooded youths mock,
aping movements as they part on the pavement.

(ii)
This man places four clocks even 
along a shelf he made himself
from iron and wood 
salvaged from the scrapheap
where he patted a friendly dog
and spoke jovially with the owner
of simpler times.

Each clock was different,
times carefully set to mark 
those hours and minutes in the cities
where his lost loves had breathed their last.

Alexis

Little 3 - 6 .

  3.                                        4.
   rootless  berry  picked up     rain that constantly offers
  ,shoreline,  another day,  over ,          garment

  5.                                        6.
    inside,                              what offers patience
   back to the window,                      ?      future
    outside,                                  offer
                                                   things

untitled Russian translation

I shall leave for some remote Northern city,
Squatting, I will smoke a roll-up,
I’ll be pricked  by a dear friend accidentally,
He will sob over me when he sobers.

I know one cheerless place in medieval Rus,
Where cheerful people live for the day,
To stay there is scary, to leave is to lose honour,
To  gulp spirits - for soul; and to pray - into darkness.

What rivers are located in taiga,
What vastness unfolds in the morning,
Local women roam them and fugitive lifers
Are raising horizons into the third power.

Let me go, you. I’m alive only barely,
I’m nobody’s forever, a Judas, a psychopath,
I am not in deep sorrow, but the gloomy, dark fir trees
Promise a certain deep sorrow ahead.

Boris Rizhy (1974-2001). Translated by Olia Grebenyuk

Poplars

Wind in the poplars talks
when left alone
caught quick by branches
sitting 
for a minute,
empathising with ravens
whilst the big black shadow surfs high quick wind – 
                        (like the rugged tug of the ocean).

Green crowns
atop heads of bark
that scream when you burn them,
a little boy stood too close
and embers glowing in the iris soon stung – 
                       (forever to remember those poplars
                        that he can no longer see).

This is what they say
secretive and close 
embraced next to the beating heart 
hear roots pull water
straight from soil
flow back down with it
to witness the fossilization
of a million dead
drawn between layers of poplar leaves
like lines on a chalkboard
tell the teacher how the slate was formed – 
                       (but she won’t understand
                        that poplars talk
                        so I won’t talk either).
                        

Peace only when eyes are closed
carved in the belly
a seat,
as the wind in the poplars whispers –
                      (hear this, another story).

Alexis