inasmuch as
discrete entities
within the alpha particle
may coalesce
unremarked
or digress
& scintillate

a tempting path towards the nucleus
the path of high voltage


complaisant into the serial mouth
the cowboy nation stutters:
bomb-blasts bankrolled
bombast treasured

the democratic nations did nothing to help

another day I didn't get
to shoot my gun


the scars this year are late to heal
I feel ungerminated soil
cleave to the rock beneath my feet
the skin sweats
I sense its pallor
innocent of the unforgiving sun

adamantine surfaces
withhold their tensile purpose
on which you slip
there is
no empathy in stone, no cause
for which the crystal structure breaks
no hidden motive, no
propensity for pain

consciousness & conscience derive from chaos
chance effusions of the particle dance

tick-tock
tick
& tock

the magic in a word
remains even if
it is not understood

caught in sublimity of encoded longing
we fake our encryption of a facile world

see carp swim
in the carpal tunnel
vision of our ineradicable
deficiencies

differences
of opinion or the facts
we are inconvenienced by
nerve-rending
never-ending


I sense you & me slipping
into the unconscious state
of sycamore, Silurian
limestone, abstract pus

subfusc the lignite
litany of sulphur
whiff of malefaction, pressurised
organic matter
exhumed to facilitate
all we believe we wish to be
liturgical obfuscation

philosophers often mistake
their failures of imagination
for insight


plummet into the well & welter
of loneliness
she scans
the want ads
subconscious of her wants

declassified advertising like a whole other
life of secret
icons & scepticism

you'd tell me, wouldn't you, if
you really loved me - let's

party to no transgressions
of this freedom
to buy what you are sold

progress is not philosophy -
formal
procedures are needed

we learn by experience
that we meant something
other than we meant to mean

gravestones at Gravelines
a cool brisk breeze blowing
over a relative upland
strip of light, an opening
door
way out this way
the catch
in his voice at the point
of departure or
no return: a single point
made inkily in the paper mind
of practical physicians
a thinning point defined
as a single wayward photon
made to exist entirely
without theistic knowledge
by subtle deviation into grain

the silo & factory, bricky, blocky
your futile argument demolished
demobilised, happy as


Mathilde, her matronly elegance
violated by eruptions
of no consequence - the vowel
A is formed by opening
wide the mouth -
I try to remember
as if I ever knew her, as if
she ever existed off
the page of this contemplation

a figure maybe bending in a field
or a balloon, part
deflated caught in the stalks
with a whole life story
some comedy some tragedy of its own
& a future indeterminate
by one listening
who has already passed on


cogent symbols on an incoherent map
the flecks of soil or birdshit now revealed
as markers redolent of city streets
the venues where a population strives
to meet its ends

a blade so cunningly balanced
it recoils as each photon strikes
a slow whirl to power
the fear of birds
a stomach-voiding drop
coeval network of intelligent force

a field full of prominent
mathematicians
grimacing to grasp
the unpremeditated slur
that castigates soft-focus thought
of mere collateral - all this cash
in a virtual vortex
of inane depression

a solitary cormorant flies
an arrow over the site
of the rising stadium
as if this

there is a blunt munificence wherein
this dumb blade
enacts ritual killings
among stocks
& shares the proceeds among


among the mesh
of consequence we tread
on shells, miscalculated
musculature
of valves bleeding the system
under pressure of forgiving forced
to imagine intensity of
entropy in black holes

an unconsidered lifeform
on an undiscovered planet
dying in the instant of its birth

pangs of formation

essences of mud

was you ever bit by a dead bee?


inasmuch as
the silver foil wrapper
jettisoned in space
flashes its reflections
of another sun
signalling
to a possible people
not yet evolved


fantastic integer of our neurosis
neural credentials
implicit paths

contaminant of imperilled time
this cod aesthetic
plunders valid thought

inside the energy barrier
escaping towards the glass

an error occurred
while processing this directive

I don't think God
likes free verse

mesmerise to minimise

a beat or two before we leave the stage

tick

tock




• The italicised stanzas in this poem are quotations from, respectively, Velimir Khlebnikov, Daniel C Dennett, Hegel & Douglas Dunn

Copyright © Aidan Semmens, 2009