Politico-ichthyology

I've mocked UKIP before, will do it again, and continue until they cease to be. This one started as a knockabout silly conversation on facebook, then grew into this four-stanza frippery...

The evolution of the kipper

In the Ediacaran,
were you the Campaign for Bacterial Dominance,
fearful of the Cambrian’s
explosion of diversity,
railing against multicellularity
and the mingling of membranes.

In the Devonian,
were you the Terrestrial Defence League
telling those lobe-finned coelocanth-types
not to start any of that
amphibian nonsense –
“geroff our land”,
early vegetables fearing herbivores.

In the Cretaceous,
were you the Fruitless Preservation Society,
using your blinkered
back-in-my-epoch fronds
to surround your little island with cones
trying to hold back the tide
and the flowering of petalled beauty.

In the Pleistocene (no not Plasticene)
were you the Cro-Magnon Independence Tribe
denying Ice Age cycles,
shouting ‘no to the land-bridge’
and ‘neanderthals out’ –
those horrid proto-Europeans
coming here and taking all our flints –
Britain doesn’t exist yet
but to you it’s already full.

Rooms from my oeuvre

Something I wrote based on one of my mixed media pieces.

Hotel

Taking the penthouse, a three-room suite,
homage to that pickled shark,
once YBA enfant influent,
now can’t-paint-for-shit shock-conceptuality,
all dead butterflies and money.

Over in one wing,
crumpled biro sketch for a green man
wrought in silver fretwork,
now etched and hammered, chained
and put up for sale.

Brushed to one side,
an empty blister-pack of brain-pills,
each 20 milligrams
a bitter bite of sweet chemistry,
I'm such a neuromantic.

Tiger balm and beaded lizard
whisper nothings through wood-thin walls,
varnished with intent –
grinning, a brass-balled imp
sits sly on his stack of timber.

Paper-cut bamboo forest,
trees hold onto chainsaw blades,
while triplet queens lie supine
under a celestial arch,
contemplating their paradox.

Faded letters speak of old contests
and hints of science,
print-block songbird
calls the ink down from her serinette.

Fragments of ammonites,
pebbles once shiny and gleaming-wet,
but still interesting in the dry,
unlike childhood holiday gleanings.

Bar-room in miniature
touts ‘beer’ above its rug of ribbons –
next door, ransom-note wallpaper
proclaims the anguish and ego
of the artist.

Of course,
there is a lacuna,
always one empty
among a hundred others,
ghosts of occupants unknown.

This hotel will stay my own.

WORdS, InNaRdS

A pair of medical/biological offerings in elementalist form i.e. made solely from the symbols of elements from the periodic table (because I do like tinkering with forms and constraints)


VErBaNAtOMoUS

AmYGdAlAs, PINeAl,
CePHAlISAtION OF
PrIMoRdIAl AmPHIBiC BRaIn,
OPTiCAl ORbS OF VISiON –
ReTiNa, SClErOTiC LaYEr,
BrOWS, LaSHeS,
NeAr NoSe, LiPS, CHIn,
SHoW UP As FAcEs.

In ThORaCIC SPaCeS,
ICKY OFFAl –
LiVEr (No ONiONS),
PaNCReAs GeNeRaTeS InSULiN,
ReNAl, HePaTiC, ILiAc,
SLiPPErY InTeSTiNeS,
BrONCHI, OEsOPHAgUS,
OVArIEs, TeSTeS (KNaCKErS).
FrAmEs OF OsSUArY SUCH As
TiBiO-FIBULaS = SHINbONeS,
CAlVEs UNdEr KNeEs,
VErTeBrAl STaCK,
CErVICAl, COCCYXeS, BAcKAcHe,
SCaPuLa, CLaVIClEs (PaIr),
CArPAlS, InSTePS, ArCHeS
CArTiLaGe, TeNdONS,
CIrCuLaTiON, NErVEs,
SKIn CoVErS GeNeTiC FOUNdAtIONS.

SiCKNESS

AcNe, NErVOUS TiCs,
FLu, BaRd’S AgUEs,
HErPEs SCaBS, SYPHILiTiC SOReS (YUCK),
BrONCHITiS, Tb,
PNEuMoCoNiOsIS
LuPuS (RaRe BeYONd ‘HoUSe’),
HIV, OThEr VIrUSEs,
CaNCEr (CHeMo, PRaYErS),
GeNeTiCs CaN Be UNKINd,
SErIOUS CoNdITiONS,
HoSPITaLiSAtION,
BiOPSiEs, SURgErY,
ReCoVErY?

Well, it is Halloween

Things that are 'meant' to be scary aren't...

Unexpected creeps

Not fox-screams,
horror films,
graveyards or fog,
not even when accompanied by theremins,

but:

lime-tree branches stridulate
against bus-shelter perspex,
pigeons echo-howl through chimney cowls,
taxi brakes cry out in the night,
anguished X-Factor faces captured as stills,
Atlas of Parasitology,
CGI babies-in-adverts gyrate,
landlady half hidden by an architrave,
light-bulb reflection (bathroom mirror),
space behind,
next door’s stone garden menagerie –
they stare so benignly,
some fish at certain angles
(Lovecraft knew about angles),
collections of old dolls
tiny porcelain teeth,
pretty much all dolls,
including Resusci Anne;
empty corridors,
abandoned doors,
trash-to-treasure TV presenters,
hydrangea petals so like peeled skin,
monochrome wind-sway of tall grasses,
dark cumulus in summer –
press ‘pause’ to shudder.

Words, words everywhere

Yesterday was National Poetry Day and the theme was 'Water' - events here, events there, poetical events were everywhere. Here's my offering - a bit of autobiography about an incident that definitely involved water in the form of tears...

Iridodialysis

I

Mis-timed arrow,
sharp pain worse than grating bone-ends,
eyeball white splits and bleeds
between clutching fingers, fills with red,
a blue-spotted pool ball –
get back in, vile jelly –
the archer cries, throws away her bow,

I fall to my knees and keen,
Others pace and mutter,
(“Hospital please”)
they mutter on – where's the Eye Unit? Um, dunno,
(“HOSPITAL NOW PLEASE”);
I’m sure it shouldn’t be me that has to give directions...

II

Nurse looks through a lens,
her eyes open wider than mine can,
calls the sister,
calls the doctor,
calls the head consultant from his bed –
rungs of gravitas, a ladder of distress;
he provides painkilling drops –
I love him –

I’ve begun to vaguely buzz and giggle,
it’s shocking –
he explains the impracticality of micro-surgery;
my other eye glazes over,
tests are performed,
stereograms – “what can you see?”
pyramid or boat,
follow the flashing dot,
follow my finger,
follow the white coat,
put your chin
on the optico-neuro-cerebro-whatsit;

steriods are prescribed,
machine goes ‘bleep’
and images tiny torn strings of muscle and grue,
milk ripped from lapis,
the word ‘blow-out’ is used –
I enquire –
an explanation is given
in terms of a thumb-squashed ping-pong ball,
inner front hit inner back,
now popped back out –
I feel vaguely sick
and sit –
I’d like to go to sleep,
machine goes ‘beep’.

III

I now have two pupils on that side,
but all the care and wondrous NHS
means I also have two eyes.

A bit more elementalism

My second attempt at a form I've dubbed 'elementalism' for now - poems formed solely from the symbols of chemical elements.

BrITiSH CuISiNe

RuBBErY RaVIOLi,
RaINY BeAcH-CaFe,
PlaSTiC SeAtS,
TiNY SiNGe-BLaCK SAuSAgEs WITh SmAsH,
HP SauCe,
GeLaTiNoUS VINdAlOO,
LaRdY PIEs (ReHeAt) –
ThErE’s CaSH In CraP-InNA-tRaY,
CoRnErSHoP BOURbON,
HIPFLaSK,
ReHaB –
ReAl AlE’s NiCEr;
BY ONe A.m.
SNOW-WHITe BrITiSHErS
CHUNdEr CHIPS BY PuB,
UPCHUCK YUCK, CaUSe RuCKUS –
OthErS PReFEr
CrAcK-HoUSe WArEs,
CInNaMoN HAsHCaKEs
ChoCoLaTe MoNeY,
SmArTiEs.

Measuring or obscuring depth

People's depths are so often hidden... audio version here.

Bathymetry

You are the shifting peat-water mosaic,
the ripples
with bright-white reflections,
the iridescent swirls of petrol,
the severed ROV umbilicus,

you are the anechoic tiles
baffling to sonar,
the rope, knotted at intervals
and lost overboard,

the sepia squirt
of a retreating cephalopod,

you are crude immersion-oil,
the tattooist’s needle-gun,
the final block of a pyramid
fitting razor-tight,

you are the historical weight
of De Profundis,
the sediments stirred up by my movements,
the shallow angle of incidence,
the attenuation of blue wavelengths,

you are the slow and nourishing
accumulation of snow,
the silhouette of a leviathan,
the spawning of the multitudes,
the roiling baitball,
food for sharks,

you are the vent’s hot outpouring,
the well-cover, hungry for offerings,
the last thoughts of a sailor
dashed upon sharp rocks,
still dreaming of mermaids,

you are positive vetting
in a negative world,
the trapdoor to an oubliette,
the anchor snagged on coral,
dragging harm behind,

you are the printer’s forgotten thumb-print,
the falling storm-split spar,
the pitch-soaked bandage,
the gyroscope frozen in space,

you are the cataract,
eutrophication,
leaf-litter,
old horizons –
you are surface tension.