Disequilibrium.

Part 1.

1.)

i.

Do ye ken John Peel,
John Brown’s body lies…

accident causality chance
in the human dance
with his coat so grey,

over the rainbow in a blue moon,

mouldering in the ground
beneath the descending sky,

for the sound of his horn brought me from my bed
but his soul goes marching on

to the cry of his bloodhounds,
Valahadoo, Hallelujah,

to awaken the dead or the stag roaming in the morning.

ii.

The final thought of life & final thought of death
begin & end in time.War between begins & ends
in the chasm of time on the run. After the battle
certain words are left to thread the hung day.

iii.

There is room in the pit of the world for bones,
philospher stones, killing fields & love nests,
there is room in the world for the flesh of poets.

Part. 2.

The Sea.

1.)

i.

The sound of one hand clapping is the sail in the wind.

ii.

The sea shell speaks with the voice of the sea.

iii.

Wild search sea child borne of the sea’s nightmare
to leave & return on the ninth wave of the tide
& emerge, submerge on the other side.

iv.*

His imaginary woman is made from seaweed & stars,
black & silver gowns of the moon,
invincible on the lea before the imaginary
day & night on the wine dark sea.*

His imaginary woman weaves to aft due north west,
loom between her knees, as his galley sinks beneath
the waves of her seaweed hair.

* The Iliad. & Odyssy Homer

v.

The cairn of the poet is at the Kelpie Leap,
a ravine on Eillan Roan where the sea roars in
& withdraws with a terrible sigh.
There the wind blows through those stones
& the bones of the poet
speak over it words that you heard before,
as a child amongst the rock pools & ripples
on the pebbles, that seemed as true ,
as if ever were forever their ancestors.
How were you to know another
human metamorphosis
would efface the fractals erosion
and let the deluge in.

Part 3.

White Corners.

1.)

i.

The converging asymptotic
tangent of the present
diminishes to a zone
marked by footsteps
that disappear abruptly

Nowhere.

Here the wilderness begins moraines,
oasis & mirage beneath the eves
of a white corner…

ii.

She´s quite bright & pretty,
a chirpy blackbird in the tiny
garden of her tiny terraced bungalow,
while hubby’s away at work today;
& he is old, sly & mealy
& comes to chat with her everyday:
one day very discretely, surreptitiously,
she will invite him in for tea.

iii.*

I met her at the miller’s wheel,
she was young & free with me,
down stream a drowning child cried
but the reeds hid her & me,
a flowery wreath wore she.
Her hair shone like gold
in the hot morning sun.*

I followed her flowing raiment
as one tail sprayed by jackals
piss is led to lair & there she ran
away, she took all the love a poor
boy could give her & left me here
to die like a fox on the run.*

* Fleetwood Mac

iv.

I am clear about the future in this open ended
story which suspends the absurdity of chance
in its chasms, life is suspense: white corner in
eclipse & the blue corn where the wolves run.

Part 4.

El Sueño de la Razón.

1.)

i.*

The dream of reason begets monsters*
& what we might that be or see.
Until Chaucer´s Legend of Good Women
‘Mynos hadde a monstre’
ít meant deformities not diabolicals.
Cromwell´s wart was a monstrosity
as in deformity it was also his baby.
Cromwell, Chaucer and even Charles
the King, would be, according to Milton,
all men of Reason but then Milton
believed in his monsters more than his angels.

* A nightmare etching by Goya is inscribed
‘ El sueño de la razón produce monstruos’

ii.

Enter the cavern of darkness with light borrowed from stars
into your house with the world at its doorstep
to remember your mortal self as a memory of light years.

Part 5.

Further Decapitations.

1.)

i.*

After the battle the gallows, the guillotine,
the garrotte & black box machine
were all that were left as syntax to write the day.

Groups of poets gathered dismally
in the forays & skirmishes to allay
the bubbling fever & make again tender the night.

They threw their spears to the waves to show,
that spells might be cast,
for each bore their own fasces of office.

Now their bodies are buried
on the cold hillside where few
can cross that fell & no bird sings.*

* La Belle Dans Sans Merci. J.Keats.

ii.

Planet of false prophets
In the carnivalesque
You toll your requiem
Turn turn again Dick Whittington
Ride ride Dick Turpin
On the night of Paul Reviere
& assassination of Lincoln.

iii.

The perfect poem is written
with no before or after,
it has no decapitation,
but this is not the most perfect poem.


iv.


The first humans came down from trees because trees were trees.

Trees took the lightening flash & led them to the hearth.

Later they became letters of the moon, became almost human,
hence the legend of anthropomorphism.

Roots in earth & arms that embrace according to the seasons.

Silent in the breath of tomorrows & their valleys of sorrows.

v.

The time is undone
when terrain
& Shi were one.

The exalted dove
puts out the blue
to its unwritten love.

We only kill because we die.
We only mourn because we lie.
We only love because we cry.

iv.

Over the faultless
Sky day breaks fey,
In love & hate.

Haunted by our fears
We commit abominations,
Over the breaking day.

Condemn our ancestors,
Or honour them only to justify
Strategies for the battlefield.

Copyright Robin Ouzman Hislop 2003
All rights reserved.