same identical sun

The other day, when I was enthusing about Mayakovsky, I said I'd try and find some poems from about a year ago. It feels a bit of a cheat to be posting old stuff, but I did go over them and make some changes, so they're not entirely stale. Also I've not had much time for blogging of late as I've got a new (better) job (in the same place), so things are a bit busy here, and likely to stay so for a month or two. I'll do my best, though. I'm writing something on Douglas Oliver for intercapillary space - it should appear there some time around the beginning of August. Here're the poems I promised:


Five Short Songs For The Sun


city

what number the cheap jewels?
the pyroclastic flow of trash?
in dazzling screes banked high,
many millions, many millions.
such brilliantly encrusted streets
as are barely navigable by
vans, fluoro maze of great
variety, lights, many lights.

traffic churns up swarf, foil,
glittering mud, puddles,
is it star or day light? While
figures dwindle to single chimes,
die, eyes all but close,
here beneath the canopy
lime trees shade, wave, release
the sun's steel bulletin.


1892

day unlived; first of all, all days.
amanuensis to the nearby
newly dead, your brave hand
one inch above the escritoire

as the sun climbs
horses
parade in circles
in the anfiteatro
dust rises
in circles

your suite of rooms; vanilla,
dust. the newly dead. silence.

sun descends and
the horses are still
turning

by evening
you have drawn
only circles
roaring ovens of light


towpath

radio on the towpath
leicestershire that smells of
field drainage
muddy leachates
brackish and still
tilth flecked with tesserae

leicestershire in the sun and
is this sunlight full
as it seems again to be
of girls and women?
do they hover a little
above the stony earth?
and what are they singing?

trailing around in loose formations
singing: ramalama fa fa fa
rising and falling on the
doo wop thermals

in the sunlight
like that
I suppose they
must be
the backing singers


pool

I dive into the swimming pool
while David Hockney watches me

I wonder as the roaring light
unbrightens, foams and streams away

why seen from here, aslant, looking,
he is the sun's twin and sees
no shadow

and why I imagine
a valley floor, and
a circle of yellow horses
cantering and
a circle of yellow dust
rising, dry

the pool is full of questions today

I break the water
my bright hand


sun

up and to
the paddock
of light

to feed
the horses
of the sun

we feed them
grain honey
bletted medlars

they stamp on
hollow turf, turn,
walk severally away

sting hisses
this hot coin
covers our
branded
left eye