FEARLESSNESS may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as ' grace under pressure' - grace which is renewed in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.
Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure.
A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish,reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily actsof courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for people conditioned by the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilixed man.
The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinquishes man from the mere brute. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path toward it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilised humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.
This post is dedicated to Patrick Mac Manus R.I.P A man who stood for social justice and peace. Who's voice and ideals sail on on the side of all oppressed people. Let apathy be a stranger, let it be our foe.
When capitialism grows ill. their is always a tradition of things taking a turn for the worst. Its been ill for a while mind you.Things can spiral out of control. Mobs can be created by societies divisions. It's interesting that the rioting and vandalism committed earler is repeatedly being called mindless, but what actually is more of a disgrace, poor people often not articulate enough to express their needs, desperate and frustrated who then grab what they can, because they have seen politicians behaving like criminals , and getting away with it for so long, again and again, and who then condemns those who follow in the politicians footsteps ,the very same M.Ps who they themselves stole from the public purse by claiming expenses to which they were not entitled.
Well double standards ares definitely not the answer , to societies problems nor are draconian, disproportionate sentences, that in many cases do not bear any relation to the crime, a six month jail term for stealing 3 bottles of water, surely is not right, yes their were some terrible things that happened earlier in the week, but what about the shameful actions of the city bankers who brought about our current financial, economic crises.
Saw that dreadful woman Hazel Blears M.P on T.V last night, roundly condemning and branding people as criminals in her constituency in Salford. Yet, is she not a thief herself. The hypocricy on parade is amazing. But some peoples audacity and cheek is allowed, and they reappear freshly rehabilitated for us all to see , and are allowed somehow to be redeemed, whilst the dispossessed who take what they like as well are called looters and gaoled whilst the bankers who did what they liked too, got rewarded with their bonuses. So it seems like one rule for some and another for the powerful.
Well somethings got to change, and no, not the vision that Cameron has planned, one I do not hesitate to mention he has had planned all along. His ideas , borrowed from his tory forefathers, one of draconian punishment and backward regressive thought. It is I suppose what is to be expected from him and his mindset, they really needed no excuse....rough justice, is all some ever want. But if you push people away, without offering help, into corners and avenues of unforgiveness, some will naturally want to push back.
the Goose and the Commons - Anonymous 17th Century against English enclosure
The law locks up the man or
woman
Who steals the goose from
off the common
But leaves the greater
villain loose
Who steals the common
from off the goose.
The law demands that we
atone
When we take things we do
not own
But leaves the Lords and
ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched
don't escape
If they conspire the law to
break;
This must be so but they
endure
Those who conspire to
make the law.
The law locks up the man or
woman
Who steals the goose from
off the common
And geese will still a
common lack
Till they go and steal it
back.
Politicians offer abundant promises, plentiful enough to attract their disciples, then in swift numbers parade abhorence when in the Summers temperate atmosphere their falseness is rejected. History has a habit of repeating itself, and conditions emerge where cetrain combinations reject patronising gestures, unite and because division has been fostered the inevitable happens. Then we see it implode before us on T.V, not the cause, just the aftermath, full of condemnation, double standards that offer no solution to increasing difficult horizons.
It seems only natural that when truth is buried underneath bylines of sensation that their will be rage. Over periods communities souls have been eroded by the tories savage cuts, it starts effecting how people behave. The propoganda of empty promises never questioned in the mainstream media. Outbursts of immediacy and frustration get ignored, in the rush to condemn. This combination of rejection and complacency offers no solution to the increasingly disenfranchised.
Everything after all is connected. After all only recently corruption at the highest level has been exposed by hackgate, and the bankers disgraceful actions. The establishment have the brass neck to call rioters criminals ,it is the establishment that should feel ashamed .A lot of youngsters have had their EMAs robbed from them, and many 14- 24 year olds are not in education, training or employment, so some of them have nothing further to lose , so now have no fear. Kids are bored , some are inarticulate and some of them are smashing and grabbing the things society tells them to want. When they do try to protest legally they get clobbered by police batons, charged at by mounted armed police and kettled for hours. Also since 1998, 333 people have died in police custody,but not one single police officer has been charged and convicted. Jean-Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson andSmiley Culture are just 3 that come to mind.
When the power of speech is often ignored , sadly their will be flames, and unfortunately it is often the poor and the innocent who get affected, caught amidst this acrid mixture. We have to try and move forward and recrimination is no answer. I personally believe that the alienation and frustration increasingly felt by the masses is fed by those in power - violence is usually caused by desperation and rejection and it seems that the rulers who are so removed from those on the fringes of society that are stoking this, with their own hidden agendas. Increasingly anger will be seen and not just in the inner cities.
Meanwhile in the last 3 days children have been injured, wounded and murdered by coalition forces who are actively breaking the laws of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Where's the justice in this. I readily critisise violence committed against defenceless people, and a quick loot will not get some out of material misery nor will police be able to fix results of long term accumulated deprivation of large parts of the U.K population.
Finally , perhaps there is another virtual London, where a happy prosperous population is being watched over by a police force of incorruptibility. So take it easy out there and remember this is what happens when we live in Condem nation.Nothing happens in a vacuum, penalise the weak, reward the rich and powerful. Their will be unrest and it will not look pretty.
" Things got out of hand and we'd had a few drinks, we smashed the place up, and Boris set fire to the toilet."
Cult figure for sure, like an American Ivor Cutler, been listening to a C.D of him reading recently, I needed something poignant and surreal in my life , two funerals in a week, but hey gotta keep on keeping on.
Brautigan one of my favourite writers, their are many....... it's Brautigan I return to more often than not whenI want to smile, he also liked a drink or two or three,four and in his later work because of this it began to get dark...... The 60s were his hey day and he was one of the most prominent to emerge from its counterculture. Born in Tacoma, Washington where he spent most of his childhood and teenage years. In the mid 50s he moved to San Fracisco where he publishe his first volume of poetry and became involved with other writers of the emerging Beat movement. The Beatles loved him, not that that in itself means anything,were they not into most things. I personally discovered him through the works of that wonderful Welsh Band, Gorkys Zygotic Mynci , that's another story , but I would recommend all his books though, wonderful, can make you wonder, giggle and laugh out loud, the 60 odd stories contained within Revenge to the Lawn I would say is his masterpiece , heres a few of them , hope you enjoy. Contained within one of my favourite short stories, it's also one of the smallest in my library. Prose poetry of the highest order.
Sadly he was found dead in 1984, aged 49, beside a bottle of alcohol and a .44 calibre gun. We all cast long shadows.
Hauntingly his work still magically shines for me.
Women When They Put Their Clothes on in the morning
It's really a very beautiful exchange of values when women put their clothes on in the mornig and she is brand-new and you've never seen her put on her clothes before.
You've been lovers and you've slept together and there's nothing more you can do about that, so iy's time for her to put her clothes on.
Maybe you've already had breakfast and she's slipped her sweater on to cook a nice bare-assed breakfast for you, padding in sweet flesh around the kitchen, and you both discussed in length the poetry of Rilke which she knew a great deal about, surprising you.
But now it's time for her to put her clothes on because you've both had so much coffee that you can't drink any more and it's time for her to go home and it's time for her to go to work and you want to stay there alone because you've got some things to do around the house and you're going outside together for a nice walk and it's time for you to go home and it's time for you to go to work and she's got some things that she wants to do around the house.
Or ...maybe it's even love.
But anyway:It's time for her to put her clothes on and it's so beautiful when she does it. Her body slowly dissapears and comes out quite nicely all in clothes. There's a virginial quality to it. She's got her clothes on, and the beginning is over.
Bannersof My Own Choosing
Drunk laid and drunk unlaid and drunk laid again, it makes no difference. I return to this story as one who has been away but one who was always destined to return and perhaps that's for the best.
I found no statues nor bouquets of flowers, no beloved to say: 'Now we will fly banners from the castle, and they will be of your own choosing,' and to hold my hand again, to take my hand in yours.
None of that stuff for me.
My typewriter is fast enough as if it were a horse that's just escaped from the ether, plunging through silence, and the words gallop in order while outside the sun is shining.
Perhaps the words remember me.
It is the fourth day of Marcg 1964. The birds are singing on the back porch, a bunch of them in an aviary, and I try to sing with them: Drunk laid and drunk unlaid and drunk laid again, I'm back in town.
Lint
I'm haunted a little this evening by feelings that have no vocabulary and events that shold be explained in dimensions of lint rather than words.
I've been examining half-scraps of my childhood. They are pieces of distant life that have no form or meaning. They are things that just happened like lint.
The Scarlatti Tilt
' It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who's learning to play the violin.' That's what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver.
Ernest Hemingway's Typist
It sounds like religios music. A friend of mine just came back from New York where he had Ernest Hemingway's typist do some typing for him.
He's a successful writer, so he went and got the very best which happens to be the woman who did Ernest Hemingways typing. It's enough to take your breath away, to marble your lungs with silence.
Ernest Heminway' typist!
She's every writer's dream come true with the appearance of her hands which are like a harsichord and the perfect intensity of her gaze and all to be followed by the profound sound of her typing.
He paid her fifteen dollars an hour. That's more than a plumber oran electrician gets.
$120 a day! for a typist!
He said that she does eveything for you. You must hand her the copy and like a miracle you have attractive, correct spelling and punctuation that is so beautiful that it brings tears to your eyes and paragraphs that look like Greek temples and she even finished sentences for you.
She's Ernest Heminway's
She's Ernest Hemingway's typist.
All above selections from Revenge of the Lawn, Jonathan Cape 1972.
Other masterpieces are
Trout Fishing in America, Sombrero Fallout, A Confederate General from Big Sur,
and In Watermelon Sugar.
I would also strongly recommend a book of memoirs by his daughter Ianthe Brautigan, ' You can't catch death'. A fascinating glimpse into Richard Brautigans life and shedding light on some of his own ghosts.
All watched over by machines of loving Grace
Taken from the Adam Curtis series of the same name
-A short poem by Richard Brautigan
Richard Brautigan
(a 5 minute presentation)
Richard Brautigan reads from Trout Fishing in Watermelon Sugar
We had an island
Oh were a stomping old tribe on an island
Red faces, hairy bodies
Happy to be hairy
Happy to be hairy
When the breezes tickled
The hairs of our bodies
Happy to be hairy
Happy to be hairy
Next best thing to having feathers-
That was our national anthem.
Right. Hairy tribe,
Hairy red story-telling, song-singing, dragon fighting,
fire-drinking tribe.
Used to get invaded every other weekend.
Romans, Vikings, Celts - fire and sword-
Pushed us back but they never broke us down.
In between invasions we grew spuds and barley,
Took our animals wherever there was a river and some
grass.
When the snows came, we moved south
When the rivers dried, we moved west
When the invaders came, we burnt our crops, moved.
Until one day we were surrounded by warriors,
The same old fire and sword, but used efficiently.
They slaughtered our warriors, lined up the rest of us
And there were speeches
About law and order, and firm but fair government.
And this is what they did,
This is government.
You take an island and cut it carefully
With the razorblade called law and order
Into a jugsaw of pieces
The big, rich-coloured pieces
Go to the big, rich men.
The smaller, paler pieces
(Five beds two recep barn mooring rights five acres)
Go to the small, rich men.
And nothing at all
Goes to those who have nothing at all.
Absurd? The many nothing-at alls
Wouldn't stand back and see their island
Slashed into ten thousand pieces.
They didn't stand back, our hairy tribal anscestors.
Some of them spoke oot. Some fought back.
They were slashed down by the giant razorblade.
And now, and now the rich seldom have to kill
To defend the land they stole from all the tribe-
Wire fences, Guard Dogs Loose on these Premises
No Trespassing.
Bailiffs. Security Guards. Police. Magistrates' Courts.
Judges. Prisons-
Grey prisons where the brain and the flesh turn grey
As the green English years stroll by outside the walls.
So who needs fire and sword?
The tribe has been tamed
And our island
Our daft green stony gentle rough amazing haven
Entirely surrounded by fish
Has been stolen from the tribe.
It was robbery with most bloody violence.
And that was history, history is about the dead.
Then is our tribe dead? Is our tribe dead?
Is the tribe dead?
Revolution
Its first shots will burst out of the earth
silently, at the wrong time of year
in a silent part of the island
far from the patrolling armoured cars.
A finger, pointing towards the sun,
which will be mistaken for blades of grass
if anybody notices it at all.
One deep night, an armoured division,
returning from an easy mission
in Leicester or in Birmingham
will be crushed by the branches
of the numberless, nameless trees
of an overnight forest.
And those breeding trees
with eccentric outlines
will be no more like our theories
than a hippoptamus
is like a parrallelogram.
Poems reprinted from :-
The apeman cometh - Adrian Mitchell, Jonathan Cape, 1975
governments only serve governments let the tribes increase.
In todays Guardian , an article about what we should do if we find ourselelves living next to anarchists. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/31/westminster-police-anarchist-whistleblower-advice
Apparently according to the Metropoliton police , members of the public should report them straightaway.
No warning attached about other political groups like the fascist English Defence League. No it's calling instead for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating " Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society , or anarchy. Any infomation relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police." Hello Big Brother, I don't bloody think so. Teifidancer might have a few ideological little differences with some aspects of anarchism, but sees nothing wrong in trying to change the world, ideas of no borders, peace, social justice, removing money from the profiteers , a shared abhorence of capitalism. Since when was holding anarchist sympathies considered a crime anyway.
So here I say solidarity with the anarchists. It is the walls that divide us that should be made illegal, it has been noted 'round here that captalism does not seem to be working, bankers and media barons, their friends the tories private interests bankrupting the public realm. Power has for so long been hidden in pockets of a cosy elite, and those who yield it have been found wanting. And of course their is nothing new about this, just the same rules for them, different rules for people with opposing points of view. Is it not the case that with no pressure for higher ethical standards, the powerful elites were like kids left free in the sweatshop, going feral as they lost all self control and all touch with reality and society.
Are not the rulers of the land still supporting the mysterious rebels in Libya now murdering one another, their friends, saving money with housing benefit cuts,attacking the most vulnerable, closing hospitals and schools. Yes this is their real reality, divide and rule. If people are reawakening from transient states that is good, solidarity is a good thing, mutual coperation, a valid calling, for some complaceny is no longer enough, call me old fashioned,but the future of humanity is at stake, I think we need to stand a little more united, less divided, may the ranters and the dissenters grow. Many of the anarchist writers that I myself have on my bookshelves, the ideology contained within supports building communities without hierarchial or bueracratic structures that are seen in mainstream society. Most writers of an anarchistic bent that I ascribe to adhere to non-violent alternatives, so at the moment some are being cast as convenient scapegoats in order to distract from the state and it's allies, who are doing the real damage. Who really are doin, the most misbehaving.
So I say report the state, time again members of the state have proved themselves to be self serving, war mongering, corporate whores. If you suspect a member of your family, friends or neighbours may be a member of or helping the U.K government in any way and any of its subsidiary bodies, why not question their activities, do not condone, oh and go on report them, but do not get embroiled in witch hunts.
Oh, seperately I may have no higher secular belief to speak of but to any who follow, happy ramadan, and remember too that capitalism is only unbeatable as long as everybody thinks it is. and the powers that be don't want that do they? and even if the lovely Emma Goldman did not say " If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." I will still sing to this tune.......finally, I have no idea what an anarchists look like, they look the same as you and me, tall, short, fat, thin, use the same language, walk the same way, one thing I'm sure of their busy making plans.
(This is ) the most accurate account I can give you of the Utopian Republic. To my mind, it's not only the best country in the world, but the only one that has any right to call itself a republic. Elsewhere, people are always talking about the public interest. but all they really care about is private property. In Utopia, where there's no private property, people take their duty to the public seriously. And both attitudes are perfectly reasonable. In other 'republics' practically everyone knows that, if he doesn't look out for himself, he'll starve to death, however prosperous his country may be. He's therefore compelled to give his own interests priority over those of the public; that is, of other people. But in Utopia, where everything's under public ownership, no one has any fear of going short, as long as the public storehouses are full. Everyone gets a fair share, so there are never any poor men or beggars. Nobody owns anything, but everyoneis rich - for what greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness, peace of mind, and freedom from anxiety?
THOMAS MORE, 1516, Book II
Unfortunately , it seems to me, that at this moment in time , we have none of the latter. The tories and their friends, and yes they still have a few in the mainstream media, very much into the opposite ideal. They seem intent on getting rid of any egalitarian value gained, fostering divde and rule. Attacking the marginalised and the vulnerable in the name of greed.
A whole ideology based on some outdated notion on the superior rights of the wealthy. Nothing is sacred to the profit maker.
I beleve their's another way, one of dignity and equality. What do I know?
Gotta go, someones offering me a smoke.In this library at least a glimpse of our shared humanity.Now where's my rizlas? Laters have a good weekend, avoid/remove all obstacles. All together now, kick out the Tories.
The final chapter revealed as devious fate Hush now! It's just till those tears have dried; The sun goes down, but what's inside never dies Stolen moments tasting both bitter and sweet. Some are born but do not get to choose As silence stumbles their escape, Falling on crimson road, an audience of one Staggers by following, a crooked vapour, . Behind dazed curtains the world watches
Sucked into a mad man's masquerade. Across the landscape, the sound of sirens rings
Barbarous behaviour suspends belief, From this darkness we will begin again As we announce our love, from flowerbeds of dust, Hope again will become a wonderful thing standing together against xenophobic tides, Future will reveal dove's wings flapping infinitely, forever beyond humanities call.
" Greetings to the solitary. Friends, fellow beings you are not strangers to us. We are closer to one another than we realise. Let us remember one another at night, even though we do not know each other's names." ( from Night Thoughts, 1956 )
David Gasgoyne established his reputation at an early age, gaining recognition as one of the most original voices of his age. Born in Harrow, on the 10th of October 1916, his father was a Bank Clerk, he was one of the earliest champions of Surrealism. Educated at Salisbury Cathedral Choir School and Regent Street Polytechnic.
His talent arrived early,his first book of poems Roman Balcony was published in 1932, and the following year his only novel, Opening Day appeared, signalling his remarkabe precocity.
In 1935 his A short Survey of Surrealism was published, and in 1936 he helped organise the London International Surrealist Exhibition. For a time he lived in France, living there on and off until the mid 1960s. Among his circle of friends were Dali, Max Ernst, Andre Breton, Paul Eluard . He became well regarded as a translator, notably of many of the leading French Surrealists.Between the 1930s and the 1950s he also exhibited his abstract drawings.
For a time in the 1930s he flirted with the Communist Party a time when both poetry and radical politics went hand in hand, but he became dissillisioned finding his natural bed among the surrealists. He did however spend time fighting Mosley's fascist thugs in Londons East End and also went to Spain at the time of the civil war, and in Barcelona translated the news bulletin during the day, and then broadcasting them in English each evening for the propoganda bureau of the republican side.
However he had a tendecy to depression exasberated by a serious encroaching addiction to amphetimines,whilst struggling with his homosexuality. He subsequently suffered from a severe nervous breakdown. I think if you look at his poetry , their are signs that he was on something, his poems like vast canvasses, dazzling in form and subject.. He returned to live with his parents and spend the rest of his life on the Isle of Wight, generally spending two decades in suffering .After his fathers' death , acute depression dogged him for years. He began to explore the depths of existentionalist philosophy.
Before his breakdown he had been prolific, however his output then slowed down. He said of himself once that he was " a poet wrote himself out when young, and then went mad."
But it was whilst recuperating in hospital on the Isle of Wight that he met his wife, Judy, she was reading poems to the inmates of the hospital ( Whitecroft), and after reading one of her favourite poems, September Sun, one of the patient's told her afterwards : " I wrote that". It was David Gasgoyne who she married in 1975, and who he was to spend the rest of his days with. His spirit was rekindled and in this revitalised state he travelled widely over the next decade giving many poetry readings at home and abroad.
September Sun
Magnificent strong sun! In these last days
So prodigally generous of pristine light
That's wasted only men's sight who will not see
And by self-darkened spirits from whose night
Can rise no longer orison or praise
Let us consume in fire unfed like yours
And may the quickened gold within me come
To mintage in due season, and not be
Transmitted to no better, end than dumb
And self sufficient usyry. These days and years
May bring the sudden call to harvesting,
When in the fields man's labours only yield
Glitter and husks, then with an angrier sun may He
Who first with His gold seed the sightless field
of Chaos planted, all our trash to cinders bring.
Later his poetry moved away from the surreal towards a more metaphysical and religious poetry.
I like his work a lot, mysterious and full of wonder. Magical, mesmeric, wide awake, charged with elemental force. Mixing darkness and light, different shades cast from his magnificent poetic pulse. I think because he did not do to University, he maintained his originality, and what he wrote was not dictated to by schools of learning, largely self-taught which made him spontaneous and free.
He was an influence and friend to the beat iconclast Allen Ginsberg, and a huge influence on another poet I admire Jeremy Reed, Kathleen Raine the mercurial English writer was a long term friend, and the psychogeographer Iain Sinclair weas also an acquaintance.
Other poetical works of his are Poems 1937-42 , The Vagrant and Other Poems (1950), and Night Thoughts (1956). His "collected poems " were published in 1965 by the Oxford University Press to be reprinted 6 times. His "selected poems" coming out in 1994.
He died on the 25th of November 2001 aged 85.
Long may his influence grow.
And the Seventh Dream is the Dream of Isis
1
white curtains of infinite fatigue
dominating the starborn heritage of the colonies of St
Francis
white curtains of tortured destinies
inheriting the calamities of the plagues of the desert
encourage the waistlines of women to expand
and the eyes of men to enlarge like pocket-cameras
teach children to sin at the age of five
to cut out the eyes of their sisters with nail-scissors
to run into the streets and offer themselves to unfrocked
priests
teach insects to invade the deathbeds of rich spinsters
and to engage the foreheads of their footmen with purple
signs
for the year is open the year is complete
and the time of earthquakes is at hand
today is the day when the streets are full of hearses
and when women cover their ring fingers with pieces of silk
when the doors fall of their hinges in ruined cathedrals
when hosts of white birds fly across the ocean from america
and make their nests in the trees of punlic gardens
the pavements of cities are covered with needles
the resevoirs are full of human hair
fumes of sulphur envelop the houses of ill-fame
out of which bloodred lilies appear.
across the square where crowds are dying in thousands
a man is walking a tightrope covered in moths
2
there is an explosion of geraniums in the ballroom of the
hotel
there is an extremely unpleasant odour of decaying meat
arising from the depetalled flower growing out of her ear
her arms are like pieces of sandpaper
or wings of leprous birds in taxis
and when she sings her hair stands on end
and lights itself with a millon little lamps like glowworms
you must always write the last two letters of her christian
name
upside down with a blue pencil
she was standing at the window clothed only in a ribbon
she was burning the eyes of snails in a candle
she was writing a letter to the president of france
3
the edges of leaves must be examined through microscopes
in order to see the stains made by dying flies
at the other end of the tube is a woman bathing her husband
and a box of newspapers covered with handwriting
when an angel writes the word TOBACCO across the sky
the sea becomes covered with patchees of dandruff
the trunk of trees burst open to release streams of milk
little girls stick photographs of genitals to the windows of
their homes
prayerbooks in churches open themselves at the death service
and virgins cover their parents' bed with tealeaves
there is an extraordinary epidemic of tuberculosis in york-
shire
where medical dictionaries are banned from the public
libraries
and salt turns a pale violet colour every day at seven o'clock
when the hearts of troubadours unfold like soaked mat-
tresses
when the leaven of the gruesome slum-visitors
and the wings of private airplanes look like shoeleather
shoeleather on which pentagrams have been drawn
shoeleather covered with vomitings of hedgehogs
shoeleather used for decorating wedding- cakes
and the gums of queens like glass marbles
queens whose wrists are chained to the walls of houses
and whose fingernails are covered with little drawings of
flowers
we rejoice to recieve the blessings of criminals
and we illuminate the roofs of convents when they are hung
we look through a telescope on which the lord's prayer has
been written
and we see an old woman making a scarecrow
on a mountain near a village in the middle of spain
we see an elephant killing a stag-beetle
by letting hot tears fall onto the small of its back
we see a large cocoa-tin full of shapeless lumps of wax
there is a horrible dentist walking out of a ship's funnel
and leaving behind him footsteps which makes noises
on account of his accent he was discharged from the sana-
torium
and sent to examine the methods of cannibals
so that wreaths of passion-flowers were floating in the dark-
ness
giving terrible illnesses to the possessors of pistols
so that large quantities of rats disguised as pigeons
were sold to various customers from neighbouring towns
who were adepts at painting gothic letters on screens
and at tying up parcels with pieces of grass
we told them to cut off the buttons on their trousers
but they swore in our faces and took off their shoes
whereupon the whole place was stifled with vast clouds of
smoke
and with theatres and eggshells and droppings of eagles
and the drums of the hospitals were broken like glass
and glass were the faces in the last looking glass.
p.1933 imagebelow by Paul Nash
Figure in a Landscape
The verdant valley full of rivers
Sang a fresh song to the thirsty hills.
The rivers sang:
'Our mother is the Night, into the Day we flow. The mills
Which toil our waters have no thirst. We flow
Like Light.'
And the great birds
Which dwell among the rocks, flew down
Into the dales to drink, and their dark wings
Threw flying shades across the pastures green.
At dawn the rivers flowed into the sea.
The mountain birds
Rose out of sleep like a winged cloud, a single fleet,
And flew into a newly-risen sun.
- Anger of the sun: the deadly blood-red rays which strike
oblique
Through olive branches on the slopes and kill the kine
- Tears of the sun: the summer evening rains which hang
grey veils
Between the earth and sky, and soak the corn, and brim the
lakes
- Dream of the sun: the mists which swim down from the
icy heights
And hide the gods who wander on the mountain-sides at
noon.
The sun was anquished, and the sea
Threw up its crested arms and cried aloud out of the depths;
And the white horses of the waves raced the black horses of
the clouds;
The rocky peaks clawed in the sky like gnarled imploding
hands:
And the black cypresses strained upwards like the sex of a
hanged man.
.
Across the agonising land there fled
Among the landscape's limbs (the limbs
Of a vast denuded body torn and vanquished from within)
The chaste white road,
Prolonged into the distance like a plaint.
Between the oppossition of the night and day
Between the opposition of the earth and sky
Between the opposition of the sea and land
Between the opposition of the landscape and the road
A traveller came
Whose only nudity his armour was
Against the whirlwind and the weapon, the undoing wound
And met himself half-way.
Spectre as white as salt in the crude light of the sky
Spectre confronted by flesh, the present and past
Meet timelessly upon the endless road,
Merge timelessly in time and pass awy,
Dreamed face away from stricken face into the bourn
Of the unborn, and the real face of age into the fastness of
death.
Infinitely small among the infinite huge
Drunk with the rising fluids of his breast, his boiling heart,
Exposed and naked as the skeleton - upon his knees
Like some tormented desert saint -he flung
The last curse of regret against Omnipotence
And the lightning struck his face. .
After the blow, the bruised earth blooms again,
The storm-wrack, wrack of the cloudy sea
Dissolve, the rocks relax,
As the pallid phallus sinks in the clear dawn
Of a new day, and the wild eyes melt and close,
And the eye of the sun is no more blind-
Clear milk of love, O lave the devastated vale,
And peace of high-noon, soothe the traveller's pain
Whose hands still grope and clutch, whose head
Thrown back entreats the guerison
And music of your light!
The valley rivers irrigate the land, the mills
Revolve, the hills are fecund with the cypresses and the vine,
And the great eagles guard the mountain heights.
Above the peaks in mystery thre sit
The Presences, the Unseen in the sky,
Inscrutable, whose influence like rays
Descend upon him, pass through and again
Like golden bees the hive of his lost head.
c.1938
The cold renuciatory beauty
The cold renunciatory beauty of those who would die
to hide their love from scornful fingers of the drab
is not that which gistens like wings or leaf in eyes
of erotic statues standing breast to chest
on high and open mountainside.
Complex draws tighter like a steel wire mesh
about the awkward bodies of those born under shame,
striping the tender flesh with blood like tears
flowing; their love they dare not name;
Each is divided by desire and fear.
The young songs of the hopeless blind shall strike
matches in the marble corridor and find
their bodies cool and white as the stone walls,
and shall embrace, emerging like mingled springs
onto the height to face the fearless sun.
Variations on a phrase by David Gascoyne
read by David Gasgoyne
Persueus & Andromeda (1935)
-David Gasgoyne
Lowland
Heavy with rain and dense stagnating green
Of old trees guarding tombs these gardens
Sink in the dark and drown. The wet fields run
Together in the middle of the plain. And there are heard
Stampeding herds of horses and a cry,
More long and lametable as the rains increase,
From out of the beyond.
O dionysian
Desire breaking that voice, released
By fear and torment, out of our lowland rear
A lofty, savage and enduring monument!
Charity Week
To Max Ernst
Have presented the lion with medals of mud
One for each day of the week
One for each beast in this sombre menagerie
Shipwrecked among the clouds
Shattered by the violently closed eyelids
Garments of the seminary
Worn by the bocturnal expedition
By all the chimeras
Climbing in the window
With lice in their hair
Noughts in their crosses
Ice in their eyes
Hysteria upon the staircase
Hair torn out by the roots
Lace handkerchiefs torn to shreds
And stained by tears of blood
Their fragment strewn upon the waters
These are the phenomenem of zero
Invisible men on the pavement
Spittle in the yellow grass
The distant roar of disaster
And the great byrsting womb of desire.
The Fortress
The socket-free lone visionary eye,
Soaring reflectively
Through regions sealed from macrocosmic light
By inner sky's impenetrable shell,
Often is able to descry:
Beyond the abdominal range's hairless hills
And lunar chasms of the porphyry
Mines; and beyond the forest whose each branch
Bears a lit candle, and the nine
Zigzagging paths which lead into the mind's
Most dangerous far reach; beyond
The calm lymphatic sea
Laving the wound of birth, and the
Red dunes of rot upon its farther shore:
A heaving fortess built up ike a breast
Exposed like a huge breast high on its rock.
Streaming wth milky brightness, the domed top
Wreathed in irradiant rainbow cloud.
The shock
Of visions stuns the hovering eye, which cannot see
What cvernsof deep blood those white walls hide,
Concealing ever rampant underneath
The dark chimera Death-in-life
Defending life from death.
Unspoken
Words spoken leave no time for regret
Yet regret
The unviolated silence and
Wite sanctuses of sleep
Under the heaped veils
The inexorably prolonged vigils
Speech flowing away like water
With its undertow of violence and darkness
Carrying with it forever
All tose formless vessels
Abandoned palaces
Tottering under the strain of being
Full-blossoming hysterias
Lavishly scattering their stained veined petals
In sleep there are places places
Places overlap
Yellow sleep in the afternoon sunlight
Coming invisibly in through the pinewood door
White sleep wrapped warm in the midwinter
Inhaling the tepid snow
And sleeping in April at night in sleeping in
Shadow as shallow as water and articulate with pain
Rercurrent words
Slipping between the cracks
With the face of memory and the sound of its voice
More intimate than sweat at the roots of the hair
Frozen stiff in a moment and then melted
Swifter than air between the lips
Swifter to vanish than enormous buildings
Seen for a moment from the corners of the eyes
Travelling through man's enormous continent
No two roads he same
Nor ever the same name to places
Migrating towns and fliuid boundaries
Thre are no settlers here there are
No solid stones
Travelling through man's unspoken continent
Among the unspeaking mountains
The dumblakes and the deafened valleys
Illuninied by paraoxysms of vision
Clear waves of soundless sight
Lapping out the heart of darkness
Flowing endless over buried speech
Drowning the words and words
And here I am caught up among the glistenings of
Bodies proud with the opulence of flesh
The silent limbs of beings lying across the light
Silken at the hips and pinched between two fingers
Their thirsty faces turned upwards towards breaking
Their long legs shifting slanting turning
In a parade of unknown virtues
Beginning again and beginning
Again
Till unspoken is unseen
Until unknown
Descending from knowledge to knowledge
A dim word uttering a voiceless cry
Spinning helpless between sleep and waking
A blossom scattered by a motionless wind
A wheel of fortune turning in the fog
Predicting the lucid moment
Cating the bodiless body from its hub
Back into the cycle of return and change
Breathing the mottled petals
Out across the circling seas
And foamimg oceans of disintegration
Where navigate our daylight vessels
Following certain routes to uncertain lands
Poems reprinted from:-
Selected Poems - David Gasgoyne, enitharmon, 1994.
Collected Poems - David Gasgoyne , Oxford University Press, 1979
Penguin Modern Poets 17 / David Gasgoyne, W.S Graham, Kathleen Raine (1970)
