Stephen Kerensky

Stephen Kerensky Writer / Poet / Performer

20/07/2023

Steve Kerensky

20/07/2023

I would like you to please return me to my Steve Kerensky page, including friends and followers.

07/10/2018

Apparently, I have been ordered to write a new post.

09/02/2018

WHat sort of post do you think I should post? Why not send me a draft?

05/11/2017

Obviously I avoid the right-wing press but the salient facts are being no-platformed everywhere from the BBC to New Statesman via Index On Censorship. Quite impossible that anything could have been censored here for a century. Obviously.

04/09/2017

Why is it the Government feel they have something to hide about World War One? What is it and why does the Index on Censorship not want this censorship to be exposed?

20/08/2012

LOST DEPARTMENT STORE 4

Now let the empty spaces prey
Upon imagination`s magnetism
For articles, or such scenes of wrath
As we played out before I moved away:
A silent hubbub of speech lay,
Like a comforter, over the counters,
Wrapping the process of consumerism
In cozy, thoughtless humdrum sloth.
A haze of imaginary sweet encounters
Infected the rooms, before they moved away.
Now tears fall in through-lounges
Daily Mail rage spews over he or she who scrounges
Or seems to, from the State. Sooner each day,
Shadows seem to fall from the time you moved away.

Once there was an inviolate moon,
Gazing chastely up while June
Dropped un**es on her grey Lloyd Loom,
Never fearing what was in store.
Sam`s staring from his misty field,
Dreaming he hefts an antique shield,
Hoping to hell she`ll never yield
To other loving,under blackout, in the war.

A roaring motor`s flashing down the lane,
The fumes have gassed the flowers again.
Young Emma`s not ridden in a train
To see where Grandpa lived efore the war:
She`s doesn`t know her etiquette at tea:
Instead she asks me if the air is free, and:
“Did they sell freedom in the Lost Department Store?”


VESTIGES

Once, when everything made sense and bedroom
Doors closed only on smiling faces and mornings
Threatened nothing worse than rain or lessons,
Perfect forms were the only imaginings,
Fears were bullies, spotted by See-Bak-A-Scope,
Round corners. Then, with hormones on the run,
The earth stretched flat, horizons uncomfortably
Distant. All perfection, under a microscope
Revealed decay; now it`s a scrap of grubby
Glitter in fading light that shines through the gloom.
Looking for explanation of the loss,
In a hurry, I took a jolting toss,
Stumbled over the vestiges of what I looked for.

Buried in corners or under the sea,
Fragments and shards of what used to be
Art are the vestiges. Lost jewels rolled
Into drains, scripts left in taxis, cold
Loves that didn`t survive a child
Or a job, or a hat. Upstairs at wild
Parties you`re a lifelbelt or loss
To yourself, you vestiges. Paths only cross
On holidays. To shield your embarrassment
Find something new you can`t show the Boss. Vestiges.
Few ever saw the mystery on the disco floor,
Limp clothes at dawn, the closing door,
All in dreaming of connections with vestiges.

Back home you see signs of them,
Everywhere traces and clues of them;
Now you`ve seen glimpses, you can look
For new vestiges. Secret and sly you hook
Out delight in a sign they can be tamed
To dance in dusty sunlight. Vestiges, framed,
Lose what is never in photographs,
Escape pie-charts and polygraphs:
You`ll only see them with a naked eye.
Discover, unconditionally, why
Anyone can find anything
To induce reflection or transcend
Poisonous traces of adrenal-pumping
Anger and fear you can`t pretend
Are vestiges.


UP THE MOUNTAIN

Even from the air, you can`t see all of it;
Under the overhang, beneath the folds once
Foaming with heat, even large boulders crouch
Invisible. Beneath, behind, over and above,
Avoiding the lens, cracks and crannies plot
Endlessly to twist or trap any unwary hand or foot
Bold enough to explore the innumerable falls
Or ascents. No sense that we yet know sustains
Such immobility, unless within the dark, compressed
Striations lurks a god or God. All this you can
Only guess as you stand, slack-mouthed or trembling,
Toes tense, leg shaking on the unweighable monument
Where you hoped to grasp intimations of eternity.

Instead your head`s buzzing with the fear of
Things gone or to come: illness, death, lost love:
Portentous thoughts rumbling like juggernauts,
Blanking out the irritating dance of insects
While filigree light between the clouds stipples
Riotous, rampant subtelties no eye or mind
Ever recalls properly. What now? These mountains
Loom like s*x or animals from sweating dreams,
Both form and symbol of your unknown aspirations.
Terrible beauties are born and lie dying painfully
While your attention`s stuck on little flickering
Images of success or the smell of festivals;
Then you blunder in your dark to where odd shapes
Make you start at shadows from the back of the mind.
Onward! You`re on this mountain, to sweat up slopes,
Drawn in by the elements as if you were drowning;
Your slender crystalline and neurone structures
Can merge with formless clouds, as ideas form on a
Blank screen. And the path still flows upwards and on.
Still every thought informs you that the past was
All mistakes, despair, a hopeless search, conducted
In fear of defeat. Why waste your strength on tough
Resistance? A formless life might lose the power to
Hurt. Underneath, below, inside, seen or unseen,
Aeons of rock and fossil compress or fold, certain
They`ll never have the need to force existence
Into sense. Temples throb; look back the way you came.
Slowly, thrills arrive along your body`s wires,
Insisting that if you want to make a form of sense,
Out of this white-blue-green-grey-yellow view,
You have to know what kind of sense you think
You`re expecting. Is any explanation going to qualify?

The mountain`s still there, and you, scabrous
Little creature, creep slowly up the swollen bulwark,
Where only luck is saving you from lightning.
So why not jump? Down there! Dropping past that
Falcon`s back where speckled rocks can crack your skull!
Go on! Risk an end. Give up your pretence of pleasure,
Deny the thrill, the chance of ecstasy. Stand limply
Trembling in your web of fears, then jump! Into
The nothing from which colliding egg and s***m
Once jolted you. Why waste more time, when time
Itself is wasteful and your tiny shred of it, irrelevant?
What`s stopping you?
What was that sound? Has rolling, tumbling, ancient music
From your nerve-ends silently shouted you a warning
To stop? The mountain`s waiting, like those first
Ancestors who killed their first wild boar and bravely
Tested mushrooms for fatality. Like a dog stuck
On a cliff, you lap this atavistic water, bubbling
Forgotten genetic songs at you from a rock. How often
Must you drink before you too can flow past danger?
And who, pray tell, is this `you`, suggesting that you
Jump? Here now is a mountain bigger than before,
A mental twin of Kachenjunga; no easier to hold
In mind or search for secrets with a satellite.
Who has ever known the sense? And is there any?
Who ever wrested meaning from this formless
Quest? All the little slights
And wider wounds
Are slowing you to a
Crawl.

Rest, rest,
You try your best,
You wake each night in pain;
What can you do
To catch a view
Of bliss the wise attain?

If self-knowledge is the start of wisdom,
Why dislike so much the thought of finding
Out? Stop, eat and move on, before the night
Shuts off your path or tricks your feet
Into falling, whether you will or not.
And all that while, you`ll be balancing
Between the love that is only hate
And the beauty that is only ugliness
Above an emptiness completely full
On the slim belief that love`s temerity
Will speak one day. Stop, eat, move on
If you can, for those simple acts are also miracles.
Keep repeating them, keep one step following
Another and then, as the horizon unfolds
Before you like a child`s drawing you find
You`re on the summit.

DEAD LKY

Johnny`s got sclerosis, now he wants to die
can`t hardly walk, got a bad eye
bad stomach, bad brain
never asked why
but he`d like to die
All the time, he`s meeting folks
telling all his crappy jokes
not that funny, and his mummy
don`t like his puns
stick to your guns, Johnny

If anyone said
that someone was dead
Johnny puts it like this:
"They`re dead lucky. Dead lucky"
Johnny got worse
then he got worse
shopping for a pretty hearse
to end up dead lucky
he ended up dead lucky
dead lucky

DON`T STAB ME TONIGHT
Hey, take the money,
If it is all I got,
I`m seeing my honey
An` we don`t need a lot
So please just don` stab me tonight

It`s tough for you too,
We`re all feeling blue
Now the jobs are all gone
And the dole office too
So be nice an don`t stab me tonight.

WALKING DOWN THE NIGHT

Nowhere to go -
Just walking down the night.
Too cold to sit -
Walking down the night.

Found chips in a bin -
Just walking down the night
I`m getting too thin -
Walking down the night.

Had a drink from a tap -
Just walking down the night
Happy garage man gave me a slap,
Walking down the night

Over the fields, wiping blood off my face -
Just walking down the night.
I wanna get out of the human race -
Walking down the night.

The moon thinks I`m a staggering drunk -
Just walking down the night
Find a barn with a straw bunk-
Walking down the night.
Don`t know who I am or where -
Just walking down the night.
No point being anywhere -
Walking down the night.

LOWER THAN A FROG`S BOTTOM

If you`re down and hurt
And your car don`t work
You`re stuck on your own
And you feel like a jerk
You lower than low, a clown with no work
Your tears keep falling – no way to stop `em
You`re lower than low, below a frog`s bottom

FACE ON THE SCREEN

Hello. Good Morning I`m so happy.
To be saying hello to all my friends
You know I love you all.
Just stay at arms length.
I`ve got my life to lead.
Don`t need your sh*tty problems
Bringin me down. I`m in enough trouble
Ratings down 15%. See, not easy
Being me. And the lines are growing,
And the hair`s greying just there. See?
And I`ll be sitting at home like you,
Googling with one hand:
Except I can still do voice-overs.
There. That`s better, isn`t it?
Half a million a year for sod all.
Ha! Eat the dust from my alloys, scum.

NOT POETRY
This poem is not a poem. If you doubt me,
Read on to the end (taking your courage in both hands
in case there might be nasty, squirmy bits), then start again,
until you`ve got it. I warn you now, it`s about
suffering. I like suffering. Especially other
people`s. Be honest. When an unpleasant fate has fallen
on some gaudy non-taxpaying creep coated in private equity,
we all enjoy it. Watch them suffer
That`s the sort of thing some people call poetic;
like the contemplation of famine victims.
Lovely spasms of guilt.
Or consider the reasons why you`re ineligible for Legal
Aid. None of these are necessarily poetry, nor is any
miserable subject you can think of made poetic by sadness,
self-pity, or regret. Poetry should be more indefinable than that -
and better built.
But I do enjoy a good wallow in my own suffering, as much as
the next man
or woman and I`m quite prepared to invent it if
necessary. Then if I write it down,
ensuring that I start a new line
now and again, people will think it`s poetry. If I only write
abut my anguish,
you are expected to realize poetry`s considered
a bit airy-fairy, so I`m making the effort to show
how sad I am, in case you think writing`s
a form of pleasure. Don`t let them catch you smiling:
(“You smug bastard!” “Who do you think you are?” “Don`t
you realize how much PAIN there is in the world?”) Etc.
It won`t prove that I have a higher sensibility, but it is
a way of proving, or at least, giving a clear indication,
that I am not a poet at all. Which would be a nice,
guilty little secret agenda
for me to reconstruct quietly, on my own,
when I`m sitting on the bog or something,
wouldn`t it? Anyway ……………

TAKE NOTICE

Expediently, with logic`s hammer
They post the usual sign.
It`s tough and unrelenting grammar,
It`s torture by design:
No Ball Games Allowed.

You can`t do that! Don`t play round here!
You mustn`t! Stop it! Now!
But Mum!
Its just the law. I`m sorry dear.
Authority does rule by fear.
But Mum!
It may be bent, or awful q***r
That makes them ban you playing here
But please don`t get me fined this year
I`ve still to pay the racketeer
My debts on last year`s Christmas cheer.
Oh Mum.
I`m sorry love to shed a tear
But playing football games round here
The law will not allow.
But Mum!

The mother`s bitterly traipsed home,
The boy`s now shooting-up alone,
The politician`s on the phone
Discussing how his quango`s blown
Ten million quid on methadone
So he can casually disown
The ju**ie culture that has grown
In each abandoned city zone
Where it has made the children groan
No Ball Games Allowed.

DOING THE BUSINESS
(In some countries, torturers are on piece work: Joe Parham Co-founder Prisoners Abroad)

Now that I`m late, `cos I`m walking to work,
My suit`s gone all clammy again
And I wish in my heart I wasn`t the jerk
Who has to inflict all this pain.

I don`t lie what I do, don`t relish the task,
But it`s work and it`s got to be done;
I`m telling you stright, since you happen to ask –
It isn`t what I would call fun.

We`ve a job on right now, which is hell of a hard,
We can`t crack it, we just can`t break through.
I`ve tried all I know but I must find the card
To trump what we know that they knew.

The methods we use here are frequently rough,
But the other side act just the same:
You can`t give an inch now, believe me, they`re tough –
You soon learn that this job`s no game.

If you don`t blab it round, I can let you in here,
To examine the wires and the flames;
This is the drain where we wash down the blood,
Those electrodes are wired to the mains.

It`s real top-class service we`re offering here
And we usually get them to talk;
We do all the lefties and nutter and q***rs,
There`s nothing at which we will baulk.

It`s only a job, see, it has to be done –
We`re on a scaled bonus you know:
There`s my children to feed, and a mortgage to run,
So I`m just not the type to go slow.

Yes, I walk into work, since they blew up my car,
And it makes me more nervous each day;
Still, tactics like theirs won`t get very far.
And change is a long way away.

FOR THE BEATLES

Close your eyes and I`ll kiss you
Not slap on the mouth, lapping a tongue,
But chastely, as if I could make angels,
Dance off, as you did, soul-weariness:
To lift the mourners of lynched bodies
In the Deep South.

In the town where you was born
They commonly laugh at disasters,
Run hopscotch on raw blisters
Patch broken hearts with plasters;
Less commonly, Scouse wit made light dawn
In the Shallow South.

I read the news today. Oh boys,
You let your knickers down, made toys
Of what you proved was true.
Now tabloid drunks can mock that you
Were rich men too, without a clue,
Better than any big-mouth.

You were talking about the love
You tried to share,
Your frenzied care
Of being aware
Which made us dare
Make war on anonymity.

NORMAL

When, normally, I went to work,
In normal suit and normal shirt,
My normal secret`ry brought in
Those normal letters that begin:
“Dear John”, and end sincerely.

One Friday, in the normal way,
My normal boss came in to say
His normal plans would pluralize
His normal staff, not rationalize
The jobs they quite like, really.

The normal way we made a cut
Was normal old-age leavers but
For once, with normal neutral look
He said: “No profit`s left to cook.”
And I was made redundant.

My normal wife and normal kids
Had never tried life on the skids:
They liked my normal company car,
The house the phones, the life bourgeois
With DVD`s abundant.

In quite a normal fit of rage
My wife told me she must assuage
Her normal needs by normal means:
She went to live with Henry Speans,
Whom normally she finds boring.

My normal sadness at this stunt
Quite swept away my normal front,
Or I`d have found a baseball bat,
And set about the oily prat
To make his blood run – pouring.

My normal friends then, on the street,
Averted eyes, all so discreet,
From shaggy beard and stumbling gait
They were not raised to tolerate
Transgression from the formal.

That`s long ago, it`s buried now,
I`ve staggered from that mucky slough,
Because a woman raised me up
And fed me from a loving cup.
Thank God she isn`t normal.

UNDESIRABLE OBJECT (dead)

He tried to make his voice as lazy
As a wet December wind, half-cutting
Through cold run-aways in the Strand.
"You are," he said, "completely crazy,
To think you might be cutting ice
As poet. Try to understand
You lack all gravitas and worth.
You think a fart is very funny
You call the serious females `Honey`,
You make poor Van Gogh`s ear a source of mirth.
We all despise your heresy on Larkin,
Resent the way you sneer at Graham Greene,
You`d rather hear Keith Richards than Ben Britten,
The quality of your despair- it`s hardly keen.
You mock at each statistic
You`re not at all realistic,
You seek to be poetic
By messing in the mystic:
It`s really quite emetic
To find you`re sympathetic
To well-dead Sixties ethics
And liberation p**p.
You need to look at more TV,
For relevance and history,
For suffering and poverty,
To teach you some humility
Towards the just veracity
In other`s arguments.
I realize your brain can`t handle
The gross but sad theisitc scandal:
God`s spite obstructs our unity.
Deconstruction frames reality
But I can`t hope you`ll ever understand:
It`s readers who diminish or expand
The meaning of each work, however bland.
And thus your work, dead thing, is parasitic,
For you are nothing but a scribe,
But I! I am a Critic.

LOST DEPARTMENT STORE 1

Ground Floor! Perfumery!"
Where powdery mothers, mamas,
Aunties, grannies, grandmamas
Upholster bosoms and sharp smiles
With a whiff from a civet`s arse
"and Ladies` Fashions, Jewellry
Haberdashery, Foundation Garments!"
Perve`s delight, tight pink elastic,
Imagination`s corsets ripped in clouds
Of stinking pheromones,
Longing, like Daedalus
For the stable breath of dungy life.

"First Floor! Furniture!" Household gods,
Armchairs to sink your debts in
Sofas on which to bewail lost jobs
Or make love after a trivial pursuit;
Imagine your uncut moquette
Bicycle saddle pressing your buttocks
On hot, rainy days when, soaked
To the skin, you pedalled like hell
To escape the dogs of war. Or was it a
Dream? "Capets and Curtains!"
You lost the thread of radio fun
And the aspiriation for a cottage or
Estate. A company car slips
Quietly along the curving patterns,
As if medieval bogeymen
Had drawn on the walls and floors to taunt you.

"Third Floor! Toys, Menswear!"
Men only swore in clubs and luckily
We`ve put a stop to all that with
Deodorants and feminism. Children
Don`t play any more, unsupervised,
The TV sees to any wild ideas:
Their video friends press them to conformity
In the nicest possible way, you see?

"Basement! Hardware!" It`s all gone.
Now. You can spot the marks on
The floor. Don`t turn on your torch. No!
Don`t look over there! I said don`t look!
Well now you know. I told you not to look.

PERFORMANCE

Imagine sliding a blade down between
A star and a forgotten has-been,
Winner and loser on fruit-machine
Of flashing, dotted video-screen
Wars. Catch a glimpse of scary
Machinations in and out of fairy
Plots and plain skull-duggery.
While you`re watching, think of feet
Walking slowly to defeat
In spite of talent or some neat
Cosmetic operations; treat
Your suspended disbelief
To a complete
Uncertainty, in a present
When any action at any moment
Might make the street or sky disappear,
Psycho might stab you from the rear
Even your agent may slowly steer
You towards the precipce
From which you`re dropping, soundless,
Endlessly like this:
YEEEEEEEEEEOWWWWWWWWWW.
(Unless your fear is groundless)
Who will find you hand-holds now?
There are none. OK love! From the top!
"Tobeornottobethatis thequestion
Whetertisnoblerinthemind tosuffer
Thessslingsnarresvvargeousfrtn......

THE BALLAD OF ANORAK HOOD

Anorak Hood, Anorak Hood,
Blue Jean tells me you`re no good
She would`ve helped you if she could
For who`s got a life without Anorak Hood?

Anorak Hood strolls into town,
His trainers flapping, eyes cast down.
He`ll never be a man of great renown;
There`s nothing much down for Anorak Hood.

Anorak Hood`s got feet of clay,
For a fair day`s work he gets unfair pay,
So he dreams of dragons and trains all day.
You`ll never catch the drift of Anorak Hood

Anorak Hood went with Jean one time
But he smells too human and his room`s a crime;
She wasn`t that happy when they blew full-time.
Life`s just a game to Anorak Hood.

Anorak Hood`s in a fantasy league,
Can`t stand political office intrigue;
P***o mags bring sweet fatigue.
No big ideas for Anorak Hood

Anorak Hood loves crisps and beer,
Despises gold and Italian gear,
Those fashion-victims make him sneer.
You`ll get no change from Anorak Hood.

Anorak Hood will die on his own,
He`s strong and he`s brave and he`s got no phone.
He lives for his dreams and his hi-fi tone.
It`s a heavy-metal life for Anorak Hood.

Anorak Hood, Anorak Hood,
Never quite made it to adulthood;
Just fishing for a livelihood,
Mocks bogus dreams from Hollywood
And we all have a part that`s Anorak Hood.

AS THE SAYING GOES

Your brake lights glowed behind the reeds.
Softly humming, you left me
In a house empty of desire
In a house of cold furniture.

You said: "It`s time for me to move."
And then: "You`ll wing it in the end
With one more eager partner
With some other loser`s fortune."

You`ve lost games tossing these coins;
Your physicality disjoins
You from your bright purity.
We weren`t just oil on choppy sea
We became greater in each other
When we were that you-in-me.

I know it`s cruel to chase you
(I know you mean....and generous)
So I`ll walk round this dim garden
Where our rhyming won`t happen. Again.

UNTOUCHABLE

Intangible truths and unspoken words
Can save your soul,
When you hang out with turds
Who think that beauty`s for the birds.
So if all that`s left to you is only
Useless, unco-ordinated detritus of last
Year`s fashions, you can see the
Intangible truths in them, feel the waste
Of time they represent and the anger
You now feel at letting yourself be strung
Along.
Instead, it`s time you spent more
Time on pointless things.
Wasting time on art or surreal conversations.
You`ll appreciate the shabby soul still chasing
Last year`s fashions.

VESTIGES

Once, when everything made sense and bedroom
Doors closed only on smiling faces and mornings
Threatened nothing worse than rain or lessons,
Perfect forms were the only imaginings,
Fears were bullies, spotted by See-Bak-A-Scope,
Round corners. Then, with hormones on the run,
The earth stretched flat, horizons uncomfortably
Distant. All perfection, under a microscope
Revealed decay; now it`s a scrap of grubby
Glitter in fading light that shines through the gloom.
Looking for explanation of the loss,
In a hurry, I took a jolting toss,
Stumbled over the vestiges of what I looked for.

Buried in corners or under the sea,
Fragments and shards of what used to be
Art are the vestiges. Lost jewels rolled
Into drains, scripts left in taxis, cold
Loves that didn`t survive a child
Or a job, or a hat. Upstairs at wild
Parties you`re a lifelbelt or loss
To yourself, you vestiges. Paths only cross
On holidays. To shield your embarrassment
Find something new you can`t show the Boss. Vestiges.
Few ever saw the mystery on the disco floor,
Limp clothes at dawn, the closing door,
All in dreaming of connections with vestiges.

Back home you see signs of them,
Everywhere traces and clues of them;
Now you`ve seen glimpses, you can look
For new vestiges. Secret and sly you hook
Out delight in a sign they can be tamed
To dance in dusty sunlight. Vestiges, framed,
Lose what is never in photographs,
Escape pie-charts and polygraphs:
You`ll only see them with a naked eye.
Discover, unconditionally, why
Anyone can find anything
To induce reflection or transcend
Poisonous traces of adrenal-pumping
Anger and fear you can`t pretend
Are vestiges.

THE OTHER MOON

To see the other moon, clearly,
You have to guess. You also badly
Need a fighting urge to grab
Or wrench poetry from drab
Daily life.

Borrow the wit to find the image,
Steal pictures on a pilgrimage,
Beg the time to put in order
Clouded visions from the border
Of dreamlife.

Reject all straight geography,
Lose your self, metaphorically,
In dust-motes, odd meanings
Or relentless cruel schemings
Of others.

Finally, at last, with clarity,
You`ll see the nipply beauty
Of that other moon, which freely
Lets you guess at truth, brings poetry
To fearful lovers.

THE WHITEMAN`S BURDEN

Don`t tell me `bout the colour of your skin, man,
If you wanna know `bout pigment, ask a painter.

Don`t tell me `bout the colour of your skin, man,
If I could wave a wand, I swear I`d turn you black.

Don`t tell me `bout the colour of your skin, man,
You`ll go crazy wishing your people was slaves.

Don`t tell me `bout the colour of your skin, man,
Play guitar how you like, anyone can bend a note.

Don`t tell me `bout the colour of your skin, man,
If you wanna get persecuted, go live in Tibet.

Don`t tell me `bout the colour of your skin, man,
You gotta soul too if you wanna look.

Don`t tell me `bout the colour of your skin, man,
If your head`s giving you so much trouble,
Why not just slice it off with a razor?
Ain`t gonna be no use to you now.
LOST DEPARTMENT STORE 2

Hear the footfalls if you can,
As Kleen-eze and tallyman,
With wives and children, gaily ran
Through the Lost Department Store.

Catalogues then came to conquer
With Mutant Turtles, trusty Tonkas
Swiping clean the hand-made shelf,
Leaving my ghost to haunt itself,
In the lost department store.

Shopping there was like a date,
Girls met to put their stockings straight:
Then on the bus they`d whisper gossip,
Crack jokes about their cashless hardship;
It wasn`t all commercial worship
In the Lost Department Store.

You can glimpse the County Setters
Stole and muff-wrapped, so-called betters,
Those who dodge their tax and pawn
Family plate to hunt with Quorn:
They`re hunting bargains, all forlorn,
Cheap gifts for poor relations` spawn
In the Lost Department Store.

Made in workshops up in Leeds
Firm wooden furniture precedes
Flat-pack chipboard folding fast;
Glass-cased gloves could never last,
Hand-made hats were soon outcast
By the deafening counterblast
From gaudy adverts all broadcast
To crush the Lost Department Store.

On carpets, shop assistants creep
Past store detectives fast asleep
Hoping a dodgy past won`t keep
Them from working any more
When the bailiffs close the store.

In the cafe, blue rinsed china
Still awaits the fussy diner;
In the toy department, trains
Still roll on disconnected mains;
In the basement, hardware clangs
A knell for the managers harangues
Around the Lost Department Store.

RADIOWAVES

Are you receiving me? Have you heard?
The word on the streets is exciting.
You are becoming excited, electrically
Charged with ions you only half believe
In: quark, quark, boson, boson,
Whetherby, George Dupree.
In your head, whether you like it or not,
There`s a multiwave jamboree.
Hurry! Under your skin in every
Corner of the known and unknown,
World behind your eyeballs, buzzing;
Can you give me an `E`, Bob?
Beneath your dreams, dropping
Idolatrous histories, bringing
Murkier slants on every deal going down.
Tonight, in your brain, you`re coming down,
At any price, where you can`t stick
A line you remembered from a hick
Poet, who`s digitally re-mastered
The index where your thoughts are plastered
Numb, like a finger that can`t feel,
Rattling like mice around the wheel
Of fortune: and up the ratings to fix
Our Coronation Street at eighty-six
Per cent of national demand.
On the dole, you`re queueing for a hand
To lift you from the nightmare of never
Being able to get some sleep, they`re forever
There, drizzling in: chance of a lifetime caught,
If you`re not careful, in nought, one, nought,
One. My own personal opinion`s hooked up to
That transmitter on the moors- Where do
Brady and Hindley do their stuff? You, you
You, all of us connected, really all the same,
Even going to the Oprah, all connected the same,
Resistless ohms of the power generation mingles
With your endlessly echoing themes and jingles,
Jingles and themes, in the pockets of our oracular
Minds that nevertheless can`t escape the circular,
Circular M25, E101 that`s receiving me,
Beaming you in on you in terminal
Radiowaves.
Over.

SELF EDUCATION

I found my self and looked away
Did I like what I saw that day?
You must be joking! On your way,
Be mindful of those snobbish fools
Who strut their way from public schools
Forever boasting what they`re worth
And ripping lumps off Mother Earth.
(They wouldn`t say as much, of course,
They`re simply using Style as force
Behind the facile argument
That Savile Row means government.)
I am one too, so I should know
How in the soul the cancers grow:
For one`s been raised above those others
Who aren`t brought up away from mothers.
The sense of self developed there
Will make you certain, anywhere
Of knowing how to make your way
From here to there with ample pay
And how to utilize your lands
Without the need to soil your hands.
It`s Self, you see, you need to lose
Before you learn to pick and choose
Between the liars on The News
Who quite barefacedly abuse
The power handed out in school
To work the System and to rule,
(By dint of fear and ridicule)
All those whom you can label `weird`
And make quite sure their pitch is q***red.
Those with a mildly Pythonic
Urge to scorn they label cynics,
Who ought to be in clinics
For terminal and hopeless cases
Who think there can be any basis
On which to criticize their stasis:
An anachronistic outrage,
That`s shaming to a modern age.

Now then, it`s silly not say
That Marx`s thought has had its day
But all the same it must be clear
These aristo`s have had their year.
Let`s find, recessing in the mind,
Some new way not to leave behind
The poorer half of humankind.
(In fact, I`m sure the world agrees,
Nine tenths will never raise the fees.)
This obviously cannot be done
Since cash buys power for anyone.

Also at public school they`ll learn
To ignore th` effects of how they earn.
Those playing-fields so trim and green
Conscribe a place where beauty seems
To be a rather dirty word,
Because, as everyone has heard,
Art comes from quite another world,
A disgracefully disordered place
Where money does not set the pace.
On pitches metaphorical
They fight with diabolical
And icy rage each common oik
To beat them soundly and then hoick
Them round to see one`s point of view:
That there are things one does not do,
(Or say or think, or buy or sell)
If one is trying to propel
Onself onto the carousel
Of those with breeding who discuss,
And judge, if you are One of Us.
One learns to hide one`s little quirks,
With help from violent, physical jerks
And chaps who always toe the line
And keep it schtum and serve their time
And bank the loot in Liechtenstein.

Once, as in Rome, it was the done
Thing to give help to anyone
Who`s just unfortunate enough
To find their life is somewhat rough:
We`re lumbered with this other breed
Who live by quite another creed.
Now it`s the self that rules our lives,
Lost in abundance, on it drives,
To power and greed and even pride.
These once were sins we punished:
Now we find they`re not admonished.

The self, some Californians say,
In dismal words that cause dismay,
Must be pampered every day.
Even if the soul`s not stupid,
The self is drawn to drink and cupid;
Once drawn, it`s hell`s own job to find
The narrow path to peace of mind.
/cont`d

Once you worship self like this,
You`re working from a false premiss.
Much of what we get to see
Of American society,
Is ruled by bullets, cash and Image,
And super-manly diets of spinach,
Where you can win if you can lie
In the correctly-chosen tie.
Why should we swap the old regime
For virtually the same dumb scheme?

So taking all-in-all I`ve said,
You might think I have forfeited
The right to claim a level head.
Not everyone`s a tyrant`s tool
Who steps out from a public school;
Some minds and souls get really polished.
But if we want class-war abolished,
We ought to have such demolished.

If we need a hierarchy,
Must it be a Squire-archy?
Why not foster clear refulgence
By controlling self-indulgence?
Why not take the path of duty
Through the glade of truth and beauty?
Avoid the dreary sad and solemn
Plod of a weeping funeral column
By all means: pleasure`s not a crime,
We need our fun from time to time.
Self-hatred quickly steers askew:
Like lust and pain, self`s part of you.
You analyse your self, it`s true,
But don`t inflict any undue
Or vicious anger on this "You"
That`s trying hard muddle through.
Maybe phrase to rescue you
Is: "Lose the self in what you do."
And once it`s lost, don`t seek it out,
If it it needs help it`s bound to shout.
Then you can start to live your life
Free of your selfish demands for strife.

FATHER TRIES TO EXPLAIN THE FACTS OF LIFE

"I think it`s awful, what they`re doing
The law`s unlawful, trouble`s brewing
What can we do? Must be something:
Anything beats doing nothing."

don`t let your hopes deceive you, child.
our enemies will pounce on the meek.
they`ll shoot before you start to speak,
while you`re dreaming of perfection, child.

"I feel so bad to see the starving.
There must be ways of halving
All our greed and pointless eating
We must get some convoys moving."

you make it sound too easy, child.
we can`t move their geography on wheels;
and nature won`t change at your appeal,
or any greater noise than yours, child.

"What do you care? You`re wrong!
It`s power-politics that`s wrong!
We`ll hold together! We`ll be strong!
We`ll change the world before too long!"

it pains me much to tell you, child,
life`s gritty road will wear you down,
your seeds will die as soon as sown;
our lands are barren for you, child.

"We must do more! This can`t go on!
You talk like some automaton
While suffering just goes on and on!
We`ve got to help the woebegone!"

oh, child you`re making too much fuss:
dissent in this dusty, barren land
will chain you to the tyrant`s hand
utopians can`t stand the likes of us.

NO DIRECTION HOME

For many years they fought us,
Driving us further and further north.
At first the land was just barren -
Then came the first frost. The cold
Exacted a locust horde`s extortion
From us as we shivered, alternately
Turning back or face to hopeless fires.
More northward still, we dressed in furs,
Stopped fussing over cold and blessed seas
As our barrier. Soon rabbits in their warrens,
Fish heaved from swelling seas, we caught and sold.
Then silver bought us gunpowder revenge
Where we`d been driven out, fortunately,
Ages ago. We watch them suffer in the lamplight
By our cozy, flickering hearths. Dark faces
Return us to chilling midnight memorials
Of how our fortunes sprung from the graves
We once dug in terror in the flight. Now,
With our certainties we`ve wrung Sahara dry,
Stolen whole nations for America, planted
Square miles of fields with slaves and marched
Around in conquest. We`ve wept for our massacres
And, for relief, sweated over our refined indulgence.
Expelled from Eden, our return is only held up
By meetings where the bottom line`s impatience
With time or sleep. We`re only one more cock-up
Now, so it seems, away from sunny paradise, although
It also seems we`re all still hooked on ice and snow.
Up here, the ground will always take more snow.

ALMIGHTY MISCONCEPTION

It`s all my fault, blame me.
I gave you death that you might live,
I gave my sons and daughters for your torturers
To play with. I sent you saints to revile,
Leaders to assassinate, land to defile,
Philosophers and artists to starve to death
Drawing in pain their final breath
Where an irrational fear shadows
Every doorway. Why don`t you love
Each other? Do you have to shove
Beggars under the motorway? It`s easy,
Relatively, to be everywhere- sleazy
High-rise hutches, with sorrow down
The walls; but your justifiable renown
For making pains just makes me groan
And I can`t handle it alone.
However often I beat down despair
You rapidly unmake whatever I repair.
What can I do? Immortality you crave:
What if I let you cheat the grave?
Won`t you only be more bitter still,
Find harder drugs to make you ill,
Run faster after neighbour`s spouses,
Or find some fence which rage arouses
You to sue your neighbour for:
Instead of succouring the poor,
You sucker them with heavy debts
And let them sweat on bankers` threats
Of ruin. Why can`t you play like
Good children? For Heaven`s sake!
Do something constructive with your time
And stop equating all your faults with mine.

IMAGE
Our neighbour read me poetry last night.
I don`t like it. I do not think it nice, that
While my partner`s vcacuuming the lawn in
Record time, he`s making such fervent images
Of love and blooming Nature, to push their
Green tentacles across the border we`ve
So carefully maintained between our real
And imaginary fears. While he
Was writing poetry, she`s been painting!
Pictures of the most unnecessary kind,
Empty of all meaning and devoid of
Sense. Anything looking anything at all
Like simple outline, bursts into outlandish
Disseminations of untidy spume,
Frothing uncontrollably throughout the
Orderly arrangements of our daily
Life. Intolerable, to think of all
That wasted stuff, swirling before a breeze,
Like autumn leaves, fluttering, unpatterned,
Untidy, around and around, tumultuously
Romping through my mind.

You must realize, my efficiency remains
Unquestioned, as I struggle to uphold
A sense of proportion, while They are playing
With abstractions, despising time`s
Uncompromising tax on wealty and duty,
My partner and I can fill an unforgiving
Minute with whole portfolios of business run.
Surely it would be irresponsible to
Renounce entire collections of domestic goods,
Colour co-ordinated foodmixers,
Muliti-layered, pre-packaged frozen furnishings,
Digitaly re-mastered insurance plans
Strategically administered downsizing
Of unproductive horticultural
Protruberances and the terms impatient
Bank managers impose on our various overdrafts,
When we might our own quietus make with spare tie-pin.
- I think I`m going mad.
But only in the sense that all the rest
Of you refuse to show a proper sense
Of the disconnectedness of all things,
While my partner and I rush like lemmings
To the brink of exhaustion. Otherwise,
I`m perfectly well, thank you, and yu can
Keep your live music and
Your incessant cheerfulness. They`re not
For me You can stick them where the monkey
Put the typewriter. Thank you so very much
LOST DEPARTMENT STORE 4

Now let the empty spaces prey
Upon imagination`s magnetism
For articles, or such scenes of wrath
As we played out before I moved away:
A silent hubbub of speech lay,
Like a comforter, over the counters,
Wrapping the process of consumerism
In cozy, thoughtless humdrum sloth.
A haze of imaginary sweet encounters
Infected the rooms, before they moved away.
Now tears fall in through-lounges
Daily Mail rage spews over he or she who scrounges
Or seems to, from the State. Sooner each day,
Shadpws seem to fall from the time you moved away.

Once there was an inviolate moon,
Gazing chastely up while June
Dropped her un**es on the grey Lloyd Loom,
Never fearing what was in store.
Sam`s staring from his misty field,
Hefting on brawny arms an antique shield,
Hoping against hope she`ll never yield
To other loving, with the lights out, in the war.

A roaring motor`s flashing down the lane,
The fumes have gassed the flowers again.
Young Emma`s not been anywhere by train,
Not seen where Grandad lived, before the war:
She`s doesn`t know her etiqutte at tea:
Instead she asks me if the aor is free, and:
“Did they sell freedom in the Lost Department Store?”


IN THE MOUNTAINS

Even from the air, you can`t see all of it;
Under the overhang, beneath the folds once
Foaming with heat, even large boulders crouch
Invisible. Beneath, behind, over and above,
Avoiding the lens, cracks and crannies plot
Endlessly to twist or trap any unwary hand or foot
Bold enough to explore the innumerable falls
Or ascents. No sense that we yet know sustains
Such immobility, unless within the dark, compressed
Striations lurks a god or God. All this you
Only guess as you stand, slack-mouthed or trembling,
Toes tense, leg shaking on the unweighable monument
Where you hoped to grasp intimations of eternity.

Instead your head`s buzzing with the fear of
Things to come: illness and death or loss of love:
Portentous thoughts rumble like juggernauts,
Blanking out the irritating dance of insects
While filigree light between the clouds stipples
Riotous, rampant subtelties no eye or mind
Fully recalls. What now? These mountains
Loom like s*x or animals from sweating dreams,
Both form and symbol of your unknown aspiration.
Terrible beauties are born and are dying
While your attention`s stuck on little flickering
Images of success or the smell of festivals;
Then you blunder in your dark to where odd shapes
Make you start at shadows from the back of the mind.
Onward! Here in the mountains, sweat up the slopes,
Drawn in by the elements as if you were drowning;
Your slender crystalline and neurone structures
Can merge with formless clouds, ideas form on a
Blank screen. And the path goes upwards and on.
Still every thought informs you that the past was
All mistakes, despairs, a hopeless search, conducted
In fear of defeat. Why waste your strength on hard
Resistance? A formless life might lose the power to
Hurt. Underneath, below, inside, seen or unseen,
Aeons of rock and fossil compress or fold, certain
They`ll never have the need to force existence
Into sense. Temples throb; look back the way you came.
Slowly, thrills arrive along your body`s wires,
Insisting that if you want to make a form of sense,
Out of this white-blue-green-black-yellow view,
You have to know what kind of sense you think
You`re expecting. Is any explanation going to qualify?

The mountain`s still there, and you, scabrous
Little creature, creep slowly up the swollen bulwark,
Where only luck is saving you from lightning.
So why not jump? Down there! Dropping past that
Falcon`s back where speckled rocks can crack your skull!
Go on! Risk an end. Give up your pretence of pleasure,
Deny the thrill, the chance of ecstasy. Stand limply
Trembling in your web of fears, then jump! Into
The nothing from which colliding egg and s***m
Once jolted you. Why waste more time, when time
Itself is wasteful and your tiny shred of it
Is so irrelevant? What`s stopping you?

Was that a sound? Has a rolling, tumbling, ancient music
From your nerve-ends silently shouted you a warning
To stop? The mountain`s waiting, like those first
Ancestors who killed thier first wild boar and bravely
Tested mushrooms for fatality. Like a dog stuck
On a cliff, you lap this atavistic water, bubbling
Forgotten genetic songs at you from a rock. How often
Must you drink before you too can flow past danger?
And who, pray tell, is this `you`, suggesting that you
Jump? Here now is a mountain bigger than before,
A mental twin of Kachenjunga; no easier to hold
In mind or search for secrets with a satellite.
Who has ever known the sense? And is there any?
Who ever wrested meaning from this formless
Quest? All those little slights
And wider wounds
Are slowing you to a
Crawl.

Rest, rest,
You try your best,
You wake each night in pain;
What can you do
To catch a view
Of bliss the wise attain?

If self-knowledge is the start of wisdom,
Why dislike so much the thought of finding
Out? Stop, eat and move on, before the night
Shuts off your path or tricks your feet
Into falling, whether you will or not.
And all that while, you`ll be balancing
Between the love that is only hate
And the beauty that is only ugliness
Above an emptiness completely full
On the slim belief that love`s temerity
Will speak one day. Stop, eat, move on
If you can, for those simple acts are also miracles.

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