| jec - solo linked verse |
The four sequences presented here are each based on a word sketch of a particular place made during the course of a single excursion. To that extent they have some affinity with the Japanese ginko. Three are drawn from a longer work exploring semi-rural Rossendale in the Lancashire Pennines; one describes Vauxhall, an area of central London. The structure of each poem is unusual: the link between the long and short verse in any pair is more direct than that between pairs. For the technically minded the poems might therefore be best described as para-thematic sequences of solo tan-renga. |
| Strongstry Bridge |
midges
bathe |
in the heat from my head |
before
they too |
are gone |
.r |
a
pheasant calls me |
all the way .from China |
oaks
pull upward |
from their moorings |
deep
within |
the floating world |
.r |
but
truly |
Monkey .did you give a poet's |
stroke
the pen |
across the page |
and
now the heron's feathers |
blue |
.r |
a
dog will bark |
no matter what .the season |
trout
fly sideways |
from the surface |
up
stream |
of the fisherman |
.r |
a
stranger stops |
to ask me .for directions |
from
the steam train |
children wave |
a
greeting |
to the unknown lens |
.r |
their
voices fade |
before they too .are gone |
| Bonfire Hill |
a
frozen pond |
a heron straining |
up |
into the sunlight |
.r |
holly |
standing proud .against the scumbled snow |
man
and dog |
in search of something |
head
back |
to the Guinessed Land |
.r |
a
thousand crystals |
crushed .beneath each footfall |
blue |
the sky is green |
the
sky is |
graded into yellow haze |
.r |
unknown
kanji |
scored across .the contrail glow |
humming |
bits of bovine blues |
I
gag |
on pure ammonia |
.r |
herded |
in the valley bottom .round their fags |
smoke |
pours from a poet's nostrils |
contemplating |
sublimates |
.r |
what
use |
is a fur coat .to a cooling sheep |
| The Famine Road |
gulls |
ply the null space |
here
are mountains |
long since ground into dust |
.r |
who
would claim |
this heritage .of home made guns |
the
suspect |
avocado killer |
hides |
behind his map case |
.r |
rags
of cloud |
greying .into far off places |
beep
for the sheep |
you red Toyota |
rattling |
like a ruin |
.r |
too
stupid |
to comply .with simple orders |
men
in lycra |
pedal past |
in
search |
of something punishing |
.r |
the
cotton grass |
like smoke .from rheumy Rochdale |
footfalls |
straying from the road |
the
lumpen slab of earth |
a scab |
.r |
by
peat black pools |
a crow .attends a carcass |
| Vauxhall |
angles
harden |
in the sunlight |
asphalt |
frames the cherry pink |
.r |
a
note of cannabis |
drifts up .from the street |
streams
of people |
cross the river |
strung
out |
on a strand of grey |
.r |
a
cormorant |
flies closer .to the water |
Tate
Modern gapes |
and swallows |
I
am Jonah |
in its belly |
.r |
the
rich queue up |
to gaze .out of a window |
glass |
grows bright as chitin |
round
the entrance |
to the underground |
.r |
old
concrete |
fades to grey .in greasy runnels |
Portuguese |
and Afghans |
shoot
the breeze |
outside the Irish Pub |
.r |
ensconced |
behind the dead-locks .there are children |