Poetry in the Age of Wireless Unfashionable now — The long hours spent Shaping lines, For a dwindling clientele Of other poets Who might still notice The workmanship: The craft, The grain of the line, A phrase honed smooth Or left rough as timber. The rest pass by without looking. And yet the trade persists — If trade is even the word — Not for profit or praise But because past connections Must be held intact Even now, in the wireless age; Because the old

Dreams, Memories, Visions    Of life as a ‘story   of the self-realization   of the unconsciousness’ ... p. 17     Digging up bones   and a little light in fog ... pp. 104, 107     Walking through a valley   to hand a goddess an umbrella ... pp. 155, 161     § Of trees as the embodiments   of life’s incomprehensible meaning ... p. 86     The bitterness of Freud   and the analogy   with God ... pp. 75, 175     A white dove transformed   into the ghost   of a customs official .

The Beast Between the Marble and the Heap, Or: The Mammoth    Between the marble wall of City Hall   and the slow‑rotting heap   of broken crockery and dusty old books —   the beast stirred.     To think it once tore open the earth   with its tusks,   raising mountains,   or guarding the spirits of the underworld.     Now its fur rotted to a brittle husk —   the mammoth   preserved without reason —   the mammoth.     Among the first of God’s works,   it had been among us from

Pillars of Ash In the beginning Nature had no voice. Then the gods threw a pest Of fire called language Upon the world And are watching it as it blazes. Now fire clings to the palate, Burns the throat. The smoke of rhetoric smarts our eyes. Tongues of fire consume the page — Paper curling into ash, Perusing fingers sifting to ash, Bodies stiffening into ash, Pillars of ash that’ll topple and disperse In the coming wind and rain .

Before the Clocks Struck Three (Mr. Eliot Had an Apparition in Salford and It Was Very Foggy)   Salford is the rainiest place, getting   Inside my shoes, wetting   Tired feet in undarned socks.     Yesterday, before the clocks   Struck three, three old horses   Munched wet grass   Among the relics   Of Clifton’s Wet Earth Colliery:   Which on reflection,   Were beautiful objects   Of rust, time and toil.     Fog swirls, curls   Around the clock tower,   The quays, the trees —

The Irwell - a river poem Rock-solid ground loosens,    shifts to liquid,    slips fast away beneath my feet.      The water dreams of boats, of willow banks,    not a foul stream of refuse    but a seam alive with freshwater shrimp,    roach, and brown trout.      A mallard halts —    strums his feathers,    beats the air into rhythm,    poised to rise above this stretch,    this blue-lined artery    we call the River Irwell.

No God but the Gold Forged in the Furnace of Flesh: A Poem on Jacob Frank       Jakub Lejbowicz slithered east   Beneath a heretic’s curse.   A worm of rot, crowned in Ottoman dust,   He wore another man’s face —   Berukhiah reborn   Jacob Frank, Westerner of Podolia,   Messianic pretender.     In Salonica, blasphemy transmuted:   Sin kissed the breasts   Of someone else’s wife.   Torah pressed into palpable skin,   White fire turned utterly black.   Apostates writhed.   A th

Spinoza’s Hatchet and the Ethics of Objecthood      By Richard Mather       “For the only perfection and the final purpose [...] of an instrument is to duly fulfil the duties that are assigned to them. For instance, when a carpenter finds himself best served by his hatchet in the construction of a piece of work, then has his hatchet attained its end and perfection; but if he were to think, ‘This hatchet has now served me so well that I will let it rest and not require any mor

Opulent Absurdities:    The Aristocrat as Pataphysician       Lord Ardenforde opens a jewellery box to reveal  a platinum brooch, rhodium watch, immortal diamond choker;  and on the quiltwork, a tiger-eye necklace pendant.  Exclamations clamour as seven yellow balloons ascend  to the Taj Mahal painting that hangs from the ceiling beams.  Soap-skinned Valentine looks on astonished,  an obsequious grin dripping from his amazing hollow face.  Plush telephones purr polite

Credit: Ahmed Abdul Rahman        The Octopus and the Fisherman [revised version]         A lobster paralysed   by venom   makes a fine meal for the octopus,   whose cephalopod beak   pierces clean   the lobster’s shell, splitting carapace   from meat.   And still the sea sings    with foamy lips .   If startled by shark   or stingray,   the octopus vanishes like magic —   a puff of ink,   or into coral colours it contorts,   bonelessly alien.   Still the sea sings    wit

If the Rain in Warsaw Sounds Like This      From a secret they shaped   A room in London—   A breath of space   Lit by a single candle’s hush.     Out there the war was cold,   Close to freezing.   But they were warm within.     Stillness gathered.   They listened to icy rain   Softly striking stone—   Each drop a touch,   A covert word   Only they understood.     It was a fragile pact:   Two selves from opposing worlds,   Folded into one,   Briefly, tenderly.     Then a man

Let His Dwelling Grow    Let him retain his secret self unseen—   A quiet core beneath the outer guise.   His thoughts drift far, where none have ever been,   Untouched by earthbound sound or sorrowed cries.  He shapes his fate by sovereign will alone,   And spends his hours by choice, not blind decree.   Yet boredom gnaws the pleasure of his throne   And drives him forth through mists no eye can see.  There in the vale, he finds his kindred near,   Who sense he will not ling

Atoms and Void There is no body without void – Epicurus You’d have thought it endless, Lucretius— The laminar descent of atoms Falling through a void serene and mute, Each atom unhurried, alone, Descending at a constant pace, Unmoved by force, untouched by will, No dawn to break their quiet fall, No god to stir the silent dark. But then—a swerve, a subtle bend, Two atoms veer, incline, and meet, A fragile sign of nascent will, A fracture within fate’s perf

I See a Red Rose    “I see a red rose” shows us three things –  “I” – a simple fact of consciousness   Or awareness;  “See” – shows the sense   Of our action.   And, within that act   Of seeing, we have   The concurrence of perceptions   (Color, shape, quantity, etc.)  Considered as a single thing –   “A   Red   Rose”.    “I see a red rose” – You see,   There’s nothing romantic about it.

All the World Was Broken: An Ecopoem   On weightless air, the cocksure ravens flew.   Wild sheep chewed grass; deer   And bison chewed too.   On a slanted hillside white mountain goats   Enjoyed a lofty view.   In forests, eucalypti, fresh-minted, grew.   And fire-green firs with purple cones,   Did too.   For the silver-studded starfish there were oceans   Wet with green and blue –   And oceans for the whale and dolphin too.     On blackest soil, the man called Adam grew   H

A Ghost As If        I am not your keeper O ghost who crouches   At the grave of my father.     The body is dead; it is in the shade.   ...

The Soul Moves       The soul moves & by small degrees   Of slow calculation   Actuates the two substances   That are body & mind.    ...

What the Mirror Said     I am the image and you are the body.  In the mirror we appear complete;  We are whole: two as one.  For a few...

A Vagabond Jew from Lithuania: A Poem on Salomon Maimon It took a vagabond Jew from Lithuania   to strike the wick that Königsberg’s sage   had hid and let go out in dark’s old age.     Said the synagogue’s rude son:   Let there be German with a Yiddish tongue ,   and from his restless mind   concepts flowed   like fire onto the page.     With quid facti?  and  quid juris?    as his lamps,   he lit the lecture halls   and shadowed nooks   of Europe with flame incandescent,  

On the Point of Vanishing     Cogito ergo ends with a sum   beyond my reckoning:     Thoughts add up   and multiply   exponentially like...