Editing poetry: writing a war in the margins

  Sometimes I do get rather irate about things. I am indebted to Seamus Heaney's wonderful translation of Beowulf for the fragmentary beginning 'so.' 



shuffle the words
a fan of cards
spread hand
five and fifty
it is almost
amazing
the lengths we stretch
to
normalize
spin money away
flatten our dread
into stocky equaliser lines
maybe I shall
begin with a single word. So.
A fragment: surely that
will course up the ire and itch
of prescriptivists
incite a war in the margins
or perchance
a dictionary definition
the delicious skill of
copy and paste
is our lunge and riposte
[it will save time if
you declare your ignorance
in the prologue]
Franz Gruber said
'we fall back on the classics
because
we are too lazy to improve'
I shall begin with quotation - in latin for preference
[it will save time if
you declare the reader's ignorance
in the prologue]
history is a puzzle that is mostly sky
Perhaps I should bring out
a squat blue fragment
at random; magnify it until
it fills the frame of reference
until everyone can see
yes this is a piece of sky
'Is it gold flecked, imbued with
the sweat and suds of promise,
with crystallized language?'
no, no, it is after all, only sky
George Wolfram said
'If I name all shades of blue
in a towering column, that must
be poetry'
It certainly cannot be science
You are
the discarded parings and dregs
of history and philology
perhaps we should move you
away from 800

Phrase of the Day

I lock the doors and
Swallow the key
And draw the curtains closed forever

The Bluebell - Patrick Wolf

Extracts from a doomed novel - 2

Misa is sitting on the couch across the room. She is all slow motion dance beat and elegant perfection. It’s a strange contrast to the couch, which looks like a stuffed tea stain. She likes to watch movies and throw popcorn at me while I write. Sometimes I pretend to write and keep half an eye on her slim wrists waiting to strike, trying to catch those little fluffy clouds between my ink-dark fingers.

New poetry: Light source

I left messages for you
Felt them scramble past, the consonants tripping on each others heels
No
Those were not shadows on my wrists
Valleys of taut tendons
Or the cast of pine needles
Green over grey
I practiced until I was pallid
Translucent
Could not be unrestrained
I scrawled myself with warning signs
Underline and emphasis
Raised and lowered
Folded myself along
These dotted lines
Until I was small enough to fall through the cracks in the floorboards
But that was alright
I sketched myself from the lines in your face.

New poetry: dirge

I forget when it was
that all the letters became evenly
spaced
when the wordsallmergedtogetherandicouldnotfind
whereone
ended
andanotherbegan
whenthe music soregular and thudding
all the white keys vanished
a kick drum dirge
whenIforgot how to remember you
as more than a collection ofpixels
a tiny map of lightandshade
animaginingofskin
ina make-believe gallery
perhaps everything driftedupwards
growing lighter
or I simply sankwhile
the lifeboats spiralled awayaboveme
shading bluerbetween ripples
gravity grew strongerandstronger
until it kept evenmythoughtsfromrising
untilIcouldnomoreleavethebed
thanIcouldhopeforreasonto do so
eventhedustthatsettledontheveneer
wasworthmorethanme