MATTHEW ARNOLD REFUSES TO EXIT THE BUILDING

To witness is one thing; to surmise is spelled s u r m i s e for another (thing)

A baby on the bus: contrast in texture

fingers solving the riddle of a banana

In passing: a woman whose tee-shirt I admire

giddiness of dust in every gutter

A memory of two papillons: their owner?

pushing them up the street in a baby stroller

In the empty house: furred thud of air

a lipsticked message on the make-up mirror

The axelodeon was invented by Dave Sawyer:

there are patterns no-one lives long enough to hear.

To behave repeatedly like an idiot does not mean I am an idiot

All I can think to say is if I had a hammer

there`d be one less cat in the world or I`m sorry

I seem to have confused you with my dad.

But it`s not really a shop, it`s a mist-ridden 7 a.m.

Sunday boot fayre where you rush up in red or dead

hangover shades with a fiver for a something lovely.

It takes moments to realise crucial pieces are missing

but hey you say it`s all part of a long game

a bit like bridge or that other one called crevasse.

To choose how to live authentically; nightmare

A wire of lightning looped itself back into cloud.

After approximately thirty seconds, I saw three strikes hit

simultaneously from a viewpoint one metre wide.

Whether these bolts struck earth in a line

parallel with my window, or as the arrow flies

fired from my window, I don’t know.

I have never fired an arrow from my window.

I only got up to go to the loo. It was 3a.m.

Then I went next door and lay on the top bunk.

It gave the illusion of being closer to the action

and an opportunity to choose waking or sleep.

The things that stop you doing other things.

We all need someone to behave badly on our behalf

Dane was a one for taking her clothes off in clubs.

At the party she advocated a show of cocks en masse

convinced hers would be biggest. Everyone turned their backs,

her loneliness magnetic in lower case on the fridge.

She often convulsed on oxygen and religion.

Firing arrows from bedroom windows made her yawn.

Consequences exist like history exists; not now, but present in the now

sick of chit-chat and shopping and food and sleep and bowel movements

and buses and dirt and tobacco and talk and wanting and ignorance

and noise and cleaning and guilt and lust and my hair and the cat

and you and the news and being good and wordswordswords

Disgust is embedded in DNA; the bit that enables you

to eat yourself. Dear Diary, I eat my cake

and I`ve had it. X X X zzz …

Dear Diary, cake again today.

We all need someone to punish someone on our behalf

There are metal rooms

and sodium thiopental

pancuronium bromide

tubocurarine chloride

succinylcholine chloride

white paper towel

matching slippers

potassium chloride

windows with eyes

the sun don’t shine in

No.

To aspire to goodness is a bit like aspiring to truth, but even more old-fashioned

There`s Graham on the cliff path

texting a message. He`s found the sign

directing him to Wiggle, or Wriggle.

Is that your grave digger`s spade? I squith

as he cut a deep hole in the turf.

We were not united in grief.

Wish I was on the way to

Crafthole or Portwrinkle.

Or knew what moved him to

When things with eyes die

a light really does go out.

Here`s a blackcurrant drink,

for your pains.

10.

To wait to ascribe meaning is to miss the point

The things that stop you doing other things!

Rather be buried in cake

I don’t think. It tends to make the head

twice it`s useable size. The fantasy goes

I loved and was really good at it.

A spate of thunder storms is predicted.

11.

To squirm is one thing; I cant think of another (connected) thing

Experience of itself is not dull.

Relayting it is,

Explanayting it is;

Negotiayeting the horror

All that unknowable peopleness

What does it mean to be good?

I don’t think I understand

Think or Understand;

People looks wrong.

I am not an iddyutt

tho part of me loves that

wants mood-improoving jokes

to elevate levitate lever the lid

the widff of o a rank penny

: I have never been people really

12.

Poetry is a kind of talk. Talk is cheap. Therefore

Syllogism is fine like theory is fine and. Please

feel free to point out the (hands;bowlofair)

stuff about the thing that dead bloke said.

A.N.Other keyboard junkie/monkey here

vile with ALARM bells ow my skull

you terrifying young man with a two one

done over underdone unable to breathe

life between lines which blur blear bluurgh

will you wake up and smell the whatever or

is it just me spending overlong on what to wear

(these shoes too thing for relevant discourse)

I can write joined–up if I want. Stitch this.

13.

To do something is not nothing

(the axelodeon rotates; a diminishing sequence

of geometric frames; in the centre a skin

filled with lead shot. Every so often

the drum tips / an acute angle

its weight of ball bearings

a Dover Beach

whoomph)