lady lay burning
hill down combed
girdled rasp,
hoary thatch and melted mottle while there,
nearby away,
with horn stuck red, eyes turned ice, distant,
death lay dying in a unicorn gouged
lady lay burning auburn torn, disarrayed,
in a rip bodice lay a tress
a muddied dressguild
spattered fingers in splayed,
sad-sought
and peter-breath rangling
Unicorn
crumpling, crumbled, struck the earth
drybrown-redreddingred,
dulledbrown-burningboast did she lie,
legs lay spreaded out
to the winds flew her tazzles and trags away;
the burn washed
a felled sword mashed the swish the green the ferned and root.
And the neighbours’ wife, her fifteen childs at skirt,
at the market bought for their future Spring,
their guzzle, that quilted hunger at lowed cost,
blackrunblackpudding
while he laboured, fished, merely fished
the haggle-gossip, the struck-slash, the hack-bite,
the straddle-glap and the puss-tap-mess shoved, glued,
sprung out of depthings
of down of greenery. coveringed-hazèd mists
in rolls of unlight flowers in mass on dark heath on hills
we once (we did once?) did stroll-stroll
as if all were heather and all heathens
we,
the origins of the land,
plague and plagiary,
the dynamics of an event culled –
brackenbornfromambush –
stealthily and dour;
silk pores discovered by healthy hues we,
who on the slim-slimming pole spie on the imper,
imperceptible quiv of the slimy,
of the lime-slime-grey, green-grey sliminess
of the motionless waters.
Thus we were
Before events
Before told by the broker to sell
lady lay
stuck dawn red rich blood sod
rich fertile whore’s purse;
white prik-like blunt in the sod
lay a body’s last heavings;
a breast lay torned out from out its bodices
of mangled, its splattered lace, rent,
five starred clutch splayed
hung suspended
shoulder from...
next to a green-leef brook, croaking,
torbid gloating morbid and dark,
lay her body’s last
while those stylite gulls
spy on the imperceptible quiver
of the slimy of the grey of the motionless waters
no more
Death is now gone
In the morning we were told
For breakfast a carcass flambé
At eleven they arrived
At one we, who had no other, met with the fire
At two-thirty we condoned
At four we waked
At seven we had nothing but ashes to gnaw, to try
Tut-bits before bed
We had arrived natant, we would be the last to leave:
it hadn’t really mattered, had it? With the last scone
gonedowntoofast with cream and tea and – why yes! – double cream
and strawberries and...
and Sir Kay who crouched, crunched-dog in a corner,
crying
From the living room window I saw the rain come down
Grey blanket falling, a downpour, like when I was six and
from under the table the din increased,
and the pane would fuzz,
like Sir Kay’s eyes over the table
as of one who had met with the fire
the red stuck sharp aim
of blunt stick breath wrought
leased white balm of rotten movement,
gaining momentum;
of green pitch rank stench of clutched-fingered garment
torn,
the blood-spat struck hand
hanging in raspings and heavings and clawings
of a body of bodies brought to the brunt of breaking
Sunk red stick,
gloat glut of poured sweat of pain high throat loosed
(by Christ!)
throoghout eevenings
discorsed
in pleesing cumpanys
so the flail rot taut flush gutcunt press out in total,
in and all,
world of no moment,
dimidiate paradise of agony and forgot stank,
hollow wearinesses repeat, and repeat, and repeat and
repeated until the place filled be the place void
once more again
“We’re out of beer, jam and custard powder!”
(And of the lost hard-blood marrow, blooded-sod,
sod-dripped into forgetfulness
because of heresies we have forgotten to commit,
permit,
to disdain,
to pamper and perish to the end?)
And while a Glasgow-London “Intercity” trundled by
the burning white majestic
burnt-white flushed oracle,
that single blood-spet sharp-work blunt-done toll-took
and death-reached horn
into smoke dissolves into mystery
post mortem:
the rain ceased on a saturday
the week hesitated in the chill
the guests edged or gravelgrit away
the house closed its eyes once more
only the eternal bedroom lay unstrewn
where hidden silks now locked now lay
like hunted fowl
hid in dark and funny-smelling odours
the rain began again on sunday
from beneath my table we saw the world
which came and went
as on a dreary-dull wet-cold morning
a car drew up
to take me back
and suddenly we were gone
once more again
non omnis moriar