THE ENGINE 6

THE ENGINE 6

For quite some time now, especially within American academe, political correctness has been a dominant discourse. Words like ‘nigger’, ‘negro’, ‘cunt’ (‘spud’?) and most recently ‘squaw’ (an old Indian word shortened for everyday usage, meaning ‘vagina’) have gone, we are told. Instead of ‘squaw hill’ we now have ‘politically correct hill’ or some such nonsense.

Academics, a notoriously narrow-minded bunch, regard these freedoms as privileges, and not as human rights. That is their business, although their facility to build fiefdoms where these freedoms are ignored may have led to them largely being ignored in turn, thus confirming their irrelevance to the rest of the world.

I was recently in Spain, Catalunya, in the coastal village Calafell, a village with a great deal of history. It had been inhabited by a Celtiberian tribe/nation before the arrival of the Romans. When one stands on the hill overlooking this village one can easily see why those ancient peoples chose this spot. Divided into three distinct districts, the old pueblo on the hilltop, Calafell Residencial (sort of describes itself!) and Calafell Playa. I decided to briefly investigate a linguistic conundrum that had been at the back of my mind for some time, in order to see what fruit this investigation might yield. It was a Saturday night and I met some Catalan youth and asked them how they described black people in their language. The unproblematic word negro came back. This is unproblematic for them because the word negro is merely the Spanish word for black. Later I met a Portugese teacher, who lived on Madeira, an Island in the Atlantic, far to the south of Portugal, today still a Portugese possession. She explained to me that the word negro had been replaced with another word, because the word negro was now defined as offensive even in the Portugese world. So what is it about this word that is so problematic? Historically speaking, negro is not a Spanish word at all, depending on how you define ‘Spanish’. The original inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula were Iberians, Celts and Celtiberians, who spoke a mixture of Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages. (Today most of the languages of Europe are Indo-European, with the exception of Basque, Finnish and Hungarian, which make up the Finno-Ugric group of languages. Indo-European languages, it is surmised, are derived ultimately from Sanskrit, the Latin of Greek of India, and the mother of all languages.) When the Romans came to Spain to fight the Carthaginians, they utilised Spanish mercenaries, as did Carthage. The Romans decided to conquer the peninsula, to the dismay of its inhabitants, who had expected that they would decide to leave once their business was over. Latin thus became the language of Spain. The Latin word for black is nero, hence the Emperor Nero, of North African descent. Therefore, Negro is simply a bastardisation of nero. How then did it come into English, and why is it offensive?

I’ll leave this short narrative at this point, perhaps some of the readers out there can fill me in on more etymology, and give me their views on words, their meanings, and their opinions on censorship and banning.

This is the 6th editorial of THE ENGINE. My aim had been to phase the editorials out gradually, or leave them as part of a folder when the website is created. I think the notions of engagement vs distanciation from the issues lying in the great media whirlypool out there have come through fairly clearly. My general impression is that this whirlypool is best left to its own devices while writers get on with the personal, literary preoccupations that compose our universe/s. It is sometimes fun to engage with those issues if only to get predictable knock downs, as one sub-editor (of The Daily Mail) said of THE ENGINE, ‘thanks but no thanks’, which is precisely my opinion of The Daily Mail. Not a snoozepaper but more like an alternative source of toilet paper.

Thanks again to all my writers. This is being sent around the limited number of people in my address book. Once again, anyone who wishes to have their address removed please say so. All the writers presented here can now proofread their glorious writings. I have blindcarboned this to prevent spamming, but if the blindcarbon is not working please send me a brief mail to say so!

You can send your poems and stories to Mr Paul Murphy at Quinqureme@Hotmail.com









AA INDEPENDENT PRESS GUIDE

The AA INDEPENDENT PRESS GUIDE has been put together by Dee Rimbaud, an artist and writer, who has spent several years collating information about literary and genre magazines and presses from around the world for his own reference. To date there are well over 1,000 entries and 200 A4 pages jam-packed with information. This information is kept on his computer and is updated whenever new information comes to light. So, if a magazine folds or changes contact details, these changes are noted immediately. This is a significant advantage over small press guidebooks that are published annually.

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The AA INDEPENDENT PRESS GUIDE has been put together by someone who submits to many magazines every year, therefore, it was designed by someone who needs the same information as you. It can be yours for only £5.00 & post & packing (add £1.00 if UK resident; and £2.00 if living outside UK).

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Farida Mihoub

Bio: Born in Paris, France where I still live, 45 years old and mother of three. Presently, I work as editorial assistant for a medical journal. While French is my mother tongue, the English language is my passion! I also write children’s stories, and cannot live without music, especially jazz and soul...

Published in various e-zines and print magazines.
e-zines: Gloria Mundi Press, Pedestal Magazine, Lovenpoetry, Evening Gossip, Pagan Muse, Colorado Springs Writers Group, Wilmington Blues, Words on a Wire (next issue)

print mags: Reflections, Carillon, Write On!, Poetic Hours, The Red Lamp (ongoing), Captains of Consciousness). Others are ongoing too.
I also write children stories and three have been accepted (Wildchild Publishing, Writer's Hood, Pagan Muse)


Failing

Considering how everything has become
I can only come to the conclusion
That one of us did something wrong
Or why not all of us?

It is strange that no one showed us
Where we were heading to,
We did it with our own hands
Where did we fail?

And stop telling me I didn't foresee
The shape of things to come
You were no better than me
In taking the right direction

It all lies in front of us
Wrecked earth, beaten souls,
Aching hearts, tearful eyes,
Orphans, whether young or old,

Look closer at the details of our madness
Touch the results of our vanity,
It's still time to slow the pace
And let love be the only guide






Spoiled


Because life spoiled them once
They keep on living in a world
That no longer exists

They had everything but
They did not know it
They thought that it would last

They looked at others
With the kind of disdain
That makes you want to hide

They never even thought
That one could be in need
That one may have to ask

Now they look at the ones
That life never spoiled, and who live
In a world that will someday exist



Hanging around


No, I won't keep hanging around
For promised better days
And truer looking hearts,
For sleep that is not peace
And dreams that are not real

No, I won't keep hanging around
For words used to appease
And moves made to inspire
For wishes full of care
And thinking that awakes

No, I won't keep hanging around
For a world in harmony
With beauty everywhere
For heavens like gardens
And skies so wide open

I only want to be here
Willing to hang around
For secrets to be revealed
And mysteries explained
Family


Do you recall the time when we were nine at home?
Four sisters, five brothers, with Mom and Dad so young
There was some fighting too, about my thing your thing,
There was some laughing too, about look at her look at him

But everything has changed now, life has swayed us apart,
We are like Mom and Dad, we carry the same thoughts
As they did when we fought, we display the same smiles
As they did when we laughed, look at us, how we changed!

Do you recall the time when we were all so green,
Nine souls resembling our father's, who left us abruptly
And there was some weeping, and there was some aching
But mother is still here, her love unremitting


Bar---B---Q


Chris Jones


Bar---B---Q is being developed just for fun as a multi-voice multimedia performance piece. It is hoped that different reading voices can be recorded multi-track edited using digital sound software and produced in surround sound. Visual footage may also be added, such as super eight footage converted to digital video, along with video and stills. The sound track would be separate from the visual track and the visual will not provide a literal illustration of the spoken words.

This is pre-release version 0.0.4. It is expected that the electronic version of the text, a type of source code, will released as version 1.0.0 and made available on the Internet using a GNU free software style copyright license. While the text cannot be altered anyone will be free to copy, distribute and produce the work, including for sale and profit provided the free software GNU license is attached to the text and the text is made available.

Voice meaning a single voice and voices meaning multi-tracked voices will be numbered as voice 1, voice 2, voices 3, voices 4, and so on as a guide to how the work may be produced in multi-voice format but these will be bracketed indicating they can be altered. The numbering scheme has no set meaning other then to indicate voice changes. This piece uses an implex or folded embedded narrative that is open to various readings and hence no determinate numbering scheme can be used.

While being imagined for digital multimedia the text could be compiled for a variety of platforms including film, video and live performance.

This text has been developed using GNU free software on a GNU Linux i686 platform.



Part one:


Creation


nations with self appointed high rank sweep across

landscapes with pioneer planted flag's far off claims


inventions belch to air industry's footpath doings


there is no world that is to be invented by minds of men

that's what we are told so when the barbecue lights up


big arguments rage and i become part of the living world


into a world where dead men tell lies cool love words burnt

by fire and i want to flee where there are no rules to learn

to measure street's cruising angry minority speech into my

life so cheap fifty dollars a visit and one fifty makes it

yours for the night and for life a picture of you

on the bare wall above my bed





BBQ Memories


he looks for a four leaf clover

when he finds it he'll hand it over

and be off again


a stone tumbles and spins

rough edges polish to gemstone finish


it's not the romance of the heart

but the romantic endless road

which leads our man astray

in the end he finds an empty world

of wealth to re-invest which never

can be passed from father to son


his mortal remains rot as the words he breathed

are said to rise and sit with the right hand

rights and wrongs do-gooders aspire with faith long lost


left to slander

the little respect

left over from pride


and the lost hopes of liberation

blighted by war torn dead

what rights do they speak


memories are gone of childhood beach days

and surfboards tied by elastic ropes


in high summer flesh burns

a watery blister red


and wonder at those things our nocturnal moments

filled with boy adventure to nurture our insanity


we have no innocence now narcotic

visions indifference forgotten monuments

bells no longer toll even a muffled ring


redundant memories silent neurosis

the first time he grabbed my cock

a feral beast my child's cock

and the memories


papers curl in the acid sun

crumbled personal archives

asked to shoulder a kind of manhood

heavy coffins push into shoulders


i have not seen the funeral parade of our dead

not even in mock

__________________________________

The Modern Hercules


concrete made he crumbles to dust

white heat shoots through him

he was bullet proof indestructible

(so we thought)


shooting it out with the best of them

on the fifty second floor executive nest

boardroom level fast deals in washrooms

installed with surveillance device

(voyeur's delight)


fifty two levels of executive playrooms dust

granite slabs falling apart at want for a

world told in ancient rewritten Greek myths


don't bother to dream it'll only be torn apart

corporate future plans of explosive growth leave

us folks alone just long enough to talk

loosely of future's empty history


the superhero an outdated machine

try turning the clock back it won't

go forward anymore and i don't know

how to tell you the world is on fire

we're all gonna die it might sound too much

but the price is right mister executive

you'll be ash before long inside cold steel


and the super hero jerks off on power

in cubicles of executive washrooms

and young men melt diamond hearts

a guard of honour to pass through


molten tempers scorch skin burnt

flesh smells death there across

a small gap in time touch its sensuous

tingle and bounce high up on the frets

of electric guitar erupted gas bubbles

farting in broken still water baths
refracted light virtue's image bent swimming

in pornographic chatter in waters in a well where

a virgin prince washes sweat from dusty brows soaked

in labour torso naked ready to drop pants


no spectacular story in mythology and legend rooted

to flourish in heroic deeds sighted over paranoid shoulders

late daylight walks on stretched beach sand to a grain

winking love to ensnare modern Hercules

TREES


playing songs of men teaching trees to cry

dropped fine porcelain breaks thin glass splinters

hurled against concrete walls i cannot

be likened to fine tea cups or champagne flutes

a common beer glass of shatterproof plastic in

a late night bar dropped to tiled floors and

hurled at concrete walls I'll not fall apart

(for you)


in the city at a building's facade standing wanting

yet not able to enter there are no people anywhere

is this a city laid bare by neutron bombs leaving

(vacant possession)


laughter cuts defiant streets bounce


___________________________________
Three Views


Nub of bone
exposed in sky
forced through ash.

II
Surge of foam
spatter fat sounds
stone clawed sand.

III
Star scattered shoreline
fish bone footsteps
weary, dragging feet.

_______________________________________

Excursion
Do you remember when we played ‘truth or dare’
wasted ‘valuable school resources’
chitter chattered on the requisitioned mobiles brought solely for entertainment
how you employed that stage heroine tremor
to terrorize poor Sally
claiming there’d been an accident! terrible injuries!
While I bellowed ‘bull!’ and worse, and Sally hyperventilated?
Remember our second - ahem, port of call
the first deemed inferior by some, like… hello
since when do Bay Marie selections rank as gourmet treats?
Remember how I stomped in, storm trooper-furious
looking for butt to kick, having been left behind
and how Nick
attuned to hurt like secret pheromones
leapt up and stalked away, blind to everything but the welder’s flash of pain?
Later
in the theatre when chance set me in a friendless row
you called out
and I turned
replied I was used to being alone.
I
sat
stubborn
visualised bandages encasing head torso legs
slow setting plaster that would harden to a carapace.
But in one hand
a tiny seed pearl lay
and when Twelfth Night began
the casing cracked
the crustacean emerged.

_____________________________________________

Invasion: Night Walk
Pines do not Nervous kangaroos
whisper, they are stalled,
conspire. a swivel-eared search
They hold unholy re-launching flight.
counsel Rosellas flutter,
under pale moonlight. disturbed in sleep.
Cones are their Deflected wombats, emissaries, snort surprise for
seedlings, scouts. needles offer no
Invasion is a companionable crackle.
tactic Only disease
that requires disorders
infiltration the gloom
and the murmurs
persist,
a wave of sound
swallowing the night
whole.
____________________________________________________________
POLISHING RAG

I'm sorry
but I don't feel virtuous
manufacturing a tennis elbow shine.
A quick flick with a duster
is all the worship
I'm prepared to offer
the sideboard.
It doesn't supernova my heart
to see my face reflected
in stainless steel.
I know metho’ evaporates water ensuring against future rusting
you've told me often enough
but it leaves
an evil smell
of misplaced pride.
I know you think
it your maternal duty
to dictate
the means of stain removal
from beige carpet.
You can't accept
that I could possibly
be comfortable
in a home
where red wine stains
predominate.
I remember
when just a snub-nosed brat
how I brought home endless reams
of wild imaginings trapped
on paper
'What is it?'
you would query, frowning
'Huh, doesn't
look much like a horse'.
All were neatly folded
and almost instantly
drawered.
I recall
those hand stitched
pot holders
clumsy gifts of 'appreciation'
the nuns made us sew
the Humpty Dumpty toilet roll cover with dangling legs that made you spasm
'What if it topples
in the bowl?'
the 'I love you' apron
spelled out
in strident green bias binding
and the silly
red towelling slippers.
All were deposited
promptly
in the bag
for St. Vincent de Paul.
Except the slippers.
They were
useful
for polishing.

Joy Reid

On the Level

We broke the circle:
The fanbelt that cooled the engine
The gaskets blew,
The cylinder head
Swelled and jammed,
The engine seized in the psyche.

We told the women to get out and push.
They went into the fields
And picked themselves
A bunch of flowers each.

And we were nowhere near
A
Hill
Going
Down.

By ‘sheaneen’


chris weige
8608 willowick dr./b/
austin, tx 78759
earthpillow1234@aol.com
_____________________
The Universal Physical Response


Driving a car through heavy traffic has the
effect of eliminating the pollen, thus providing
crucial assistance in a child’s struggle with
illness.

Sometimes the responses are very much
exaggerated, and take infinitely varied forms.

For your reference, see Natural Habitat in
the Age of the Biological Robot: TheEffects
of Previous Challenges to Health (From the
Perspectives of Allergens and Bacteria) by
Putnam and Rhora.

They may even discover pollen on the
common radio.

Fever victims, for example, arbitrarily
playmind games in dealing with the charts in
medical waiting rooms and have been known to
be financiers of the covert operation known
only as Sweat.

the color of the face. Every
responding physician took turns influencing
the emotional compartments of each patient
panting of the conditioned crowd, the intensity
of the effects roused conscious meanings from
deep within even my very self, meanings
previously assigned to only my nose, stomach,
or urinary tract. The significance of this to the
unconscious mind, and to war and all its
tributaries, is enormous and viewed by a select
few as perversely threatening.

Working at a frustrating job, watching life
from the inside of your body without knowing it.
With some people the stress is over-rated.

Stuffed noses go their own way. The family
quarrel has symbolic meaning inthis situation
only because it makes others resentful and
often begs physical response. (Sometimes the
pollen can be perceived as being the person.
However, the whole person (both body and
molded mind) figures into the actual
evidentiary pollen count and consequent stress
on the subject)

Everyone here has recognized at least a
handful of the patients. The upshot is that
they’ll grow up to be real easy-going.

Early childhood is only the beginning of a
manufactured pattern of outside stimuli sent
bent on wreaking havoc and programming
brilliant minds to be clay targets for demons in
pinstripes.

Sneeze if sufficientplant pollen or coin.

2002 ChrisWeige
austin. Born: 1.27.02.
548pm
_______
1987 blonde

O Popcorn
You and me tonight just the wild finger free rash
long-line mystery mind-shrine;
Speak in signs with remote, slapping hands in
the Pirate Sea, Grow dope and reroute the
fisherman with his low-down moon-eyes.
In windowed rooms this side east there are
shadows where they grow humans for food
And international slavery; there are crevices
and in those crevices clues;

There is also the city weather.

O Two-Step
All I can smell is the smoke of burning sweaters
climbing robes olden screws;
Take bites out of erratic memorized eyes and
pulses;
grow spokes on your embellished streets;
Kiss yr dog and you’ll find yr cure.

In 1987 the thrones were big for new-made sons
suckling maritime ships on stage,
History died in the TV and Columbus was saved;
there are backyard grills which
maskhalf-hearted rage;
There is also the surveillance camera on yr
grave.

O Porcupine
Your obsession to cigarette and milky upper lips
makes way for feathers behind all the beaks;
Lush yr tears away in cubed con privacies; lift
yr cheek with a pinch and squeak; Become real
using your own face and kissing reverie:
O Turn-On
You’re the add-on to escape the big crowds
and beasts, another word for wine.
Sex the far distance for the easy body and
bean;
Smoke the space joke and viper.
The skin has three layers of tissue and elastic
fiber, see?

In 1987, for some, the play money was free.

2002 ChrisWeige.Austin.1.27.02.7.08pm
________

Notes for a report on the total behavior of
a skyscraper in the eye of a hurricane

A working cadre of earth scientists is hoping
these forces of change will makeyour mind
cloudy.

Not a month goes by without scientists, armed
with computers and top-secret data,
collusively deriding crucial system programs
and factors to refresh your memory.

The mystery is not in the advanced
technological applications but rather in the
crudeness of the phenomenon and the
far-reaching influence and impact of these
operations.

To eyes filtering this spectrum, this is a true
portrait of a dramatic era.

It may well take decades to pore over these
unexplained facts and comprehensive
mathematical models.

To improve the equation and aerial tides there
must exist long-term insight and critical
introspection, to be fair.

They forecast for the stage long and
short-term climates, worldwide temperature
change, even starlight and infrared/ultraviolet
waves.

There are floods coming as well as other natural
disasters; A dozen earth-wobbles.

Trade and commerce are hardly contingent on
governmental meteorology or the content of
the deep sea.

This process took months to hide.

2002 ChrisWeige.B: 2.6.02.9:09pm.austin.tx.
_________

Xiaxong

Sanity light tonight sober gentle street.
Truth puddles get cold on leaves
But bide time counting every free-falling
moon.

On a pillow of earth toxic freedom shocks the
system,
Gas masks second hand bullet vests,
Caps of money make ugly the new synthetic
limb and bruise-burn purple the new black.

One of these days god won’t turn back but
save. Now we’re waiting for the next extra
special heat wave
In a cotton field sitting on a comet periodically
real,
Our brains mangled by the tipping stars,
sunlight, sniffles:

(Bucketfuls because I do not belong, Xiaxong.)

The beaches, look at them, handmade dust and
glitter;
Such sanitized shaved legs golden dawn and
wired!
Such fires and baggage to sell or drown or split.

And due twice too, the echoes, listen to them
a murmuring nasal twang dark splinter;
Demigods with spit-shined halos hooked on
woman heart and tight ass plucking strings,
Selling ozone and word-glue along brick
avenues while the assassins sleep in the winter
sea.

One of these noises will one day be covered by a
moustache which will grunt
From the corner by an acid metal barrel filled
with more sounds than whispers;
The orchids rub my skin sore but I only want
more, so much more than another dull right
turn,
So much more inside Xiaxong like crazy air and
sordid ballads, cotton mouth panties in my
zipper.

Thick books on the oblong table you grunt I
swallow yr bra and glove rabbit,
Then terrific wires tangled up in arms splitting
up the fog while you walk the bed of toenails
and giggle
And tickle like an ocean fish brandishing a wild
chainsaw.

I love the inside beat and flower by the freak
tide dripping down my throat
And conquering my spine right sunken and
turned on the worm-word song-drama-farm:

Xiaxong Xiaxong, your very thoughts are the
sky an prfect crumb:
Antidote to the lie.
_____________

Wildwestderangement:Fresh-Cut
Diamonds Day

The beds are made the sun is a go.
Someday we’ll all be aflame, desired,
ether-fate.
Stick it in my arm the sea the blackened
entrails the Holy Ghost sheet.
The buffet witch is free to cope and rake

The leaves from the front porch;

Stick it in my arm, dear, the cleared and
capable goat,
The pennies and creeps grab them by the
throat.
Forget what they sold forget what they sold
their pathetic jokes
And roads to ruin;
Likewise the oral soap, the too sick and old
lonely show,

Give it good to the roach:
Make gorgeous the Wild West Derangement;

Give yr name its leather, dear --
Your child your hands without edges, your toes
with pockets and folders,
Your oxygen god your cancer gone, your rotten
gut brown spot a mere mirage.
Baby blue early or late or burned gotta flirt
gotta fight:

Peoplegot eternity.

People got to chew blues bent for war with
karma,
Smooth cool automatic seeking bloody words
more than answers,
Truly they came to be dancers but lost the beat
so wash away ink!

Wash away ink, Rain,
Wash away ink: electrocute elite
withtelephone and email schemes,
Manipulate with your hands and scissors the
image-dream.
The nth test of remembrance is a bandwagon
among the forgetful riders,
The close-up shot of lotion, the slapping ass of
the turtle-kind, the fool’s doughy dime:
Imagine the roof of yr mouth the root of the
punk rose.

People got the bored then lose yr mind vote.

The beds are made the sun is a go.
These are needles to help my nose so stick it in
my arm, dear,
Stick it in my arm yr jets and evil; soundproof
my ears for the parade,
Drive it once more into our makeshift crest and
yarn.

Yes, there were farms and chicken free-range.
Yes, there were peacocks by the barn.
Yes, many of them die under the toenail of the
suits whoSnort booty and mindkontrol to
forestall the reversal of rites and
govern-ments;
And this is the peak of forever and then,
whatever yr scheme;
This is the river on its knees just yesterday
calling home on the harsh skin to weep:

Whatever yr dream, tell it to the armless
girl you’ve never seen.

weige,2001\
__________

smoking toes

My face is stretched pale, my armor rusty;
All screams have vacated by morning got lost
somewhere in sinister imaginings/Gone!
Gone with fearless lips seductive silhouettes
dipping the wall period red with words
And worlds co-existing effortlessly, without
even the mind of vast consciousness in the
upper regions:

A slow-motion kiss, a long-distance connection
in a head-on collision;
Sex and love forever at war together in pieces
down my throat with strange pulses
And mystery births, extraordinary Spanish
feet cutting conversation in two and riding
Me into the living room/Barcelona!

Everybody is in Barcelona for the time being
what we can, our souls in euphoria caressed
By the infinite pores and scent of something
foreign: Legs, rubber, creeping chromosomes

Isn’tit home moan? Isn’t it eureka?

The tiles begin to reshape past the walk; they
sway and rat out old constellations from an
autumn wall
Made to touch made to become a galaxy of
faint freckles, a perpetual habit the rim of her
smile her nostrils her teeth, which never seem
to fit.

Out the den window is an orchard with the same
sloping neck good morning.
-
chrisweige.1.02.cw.
____________
perfecto mole magnetic

In this atmosphere test her haunting eyes are
bottomless, replicated, regenerated,cursed,
Salt cuts fist and blood, a derangement
awaiting bare tongue and sonic boom,
An arrangement for the union of heaven and
states, heads on shoulder beds, perpetual
flowers:
Tender angelic peace poems born to dig naked
comrades for salvation of faith and mud,

So sleepy eye this black caffeine tit; she’s
on the arc of a yawn/ precious awaiting
epiphany,

Her charcoal eyes are bigger than head her
sleepy goodbye at dusk an ultra-high dub
manuscript,
She is an acid cathedral, a navel a swan-swept
neck, a universal spiral turned on by dimes,
An eclipse in the Star Wars anti-alien-terrorist
wreck, a flashbulb trek the tarnished hero:
Einstein was right so he steamed his teeth with
mint, apple core and crooked towers,
In his mind the sly dilated bloodline of light the
telepathic experiment perfecto mole
magnetic.

Her static missiles sizzle for close-ups her
broken mouth seeks refuge in a seal of lawful
souls not sharecropper death and dust bowls,
she is a lady lost but not entirely devoured by
banks and native curses,
The last great dilemma of closer, perhaps, or in
this space apocalyptic rain-shower:

The stones throw is in exactly one hour.
-
B;9.20.00Weige.


The Fields of Norwich

The fields were wild with red
and yellow flowers,
on their northerly
sides greened up a bit
with similar lichens
among which someone then
was picking out a path
an we, thinking of sleep the overcast
sky had contrived to
vary its staring
blank with, all certainty
now confined to knowledge
of a remembered
red, an envisioned
yellow, wild in my eye
in the fields of Norwich.



Towards Midnight
Wading through shallows, standing on the shore of night,
Watching a gentle leaf floating brightly in the moonlight...


Analogue Clock
A lonely analogue clock waved to a digital clock,
But nothing occurred until the digital clock winked
Then analogue clock became smitten with love.
The secret affair lasted for many a week
Until one changeable day when analogue clock
Received a message from a sundial in the garden.
Now analogue had two suitors. She had to choose.
One was cheeky, the other bright and breezy,
But in the end settled for an old flame she knew:
A picture calender of the Mediterranean
She felt sure was going places.


Listen to Me
I like to close the door at the end of the day
And explore my hidden store of when I was then,
When I was free to listen to me and whoever I pleased
And try to ignore the crowd of who we are now.


In a Spin
If the turning tide returns before I arrive
Then wait for me beside green granite gate
And watch for her upon the shore, she wont be far,
For from high water rows the oars that propel the craft
Which carries my true heart home at last.


Stomping Stumps
If we could climb to the top of impending doom
And look out beyond the gathering clouds of gloom
Towards the faraway morning islands of sunlit silence
Where cramped legs uncurl in the waking lightness
Then it might help improve our mood.


Inside Out
Here I sit by this dull box of delight
Sipping whisky with some water and ice
Waiting for the world to twirl through the night...
Gazing at the beauty of a turning wooden windmill
Shimmering in flowering sunrise fields,
Blazing in the twilight afterglow.

Robert Black