26. Untitled Fragment

‘Search’ is a church buzz-word.
The actual action is to ‘walk’ in hope
of stumbling on the miraculous; we patrol
hospital corridors helping patients on
with their prosthetics, in real-life,
or risk running poems in which patients
are assisted with their prosthetics
by their assigned poets.

We may be at war -- Afghanistan or Iraq.
Either way, if God knocks three times
on a door anywhere in the vicinity
of our stories, there will be tumbleweed
wheeling over a well-trodden path somewhere
like those of the chair he couldn’t stand,
which they replaced with a prosthetic leg
as soon as he said he couldn't be satisfied.

25. Jib Þrongs Jinns Sir

An abnominal for Jón “Jónsi” Þór Birgisson

Þis      brig

      ninon   jib;

Þis      born ibis   rib

no brió   bring rós   iris

Þis      joss-gnósis

           bong-grin

           
            nó Þin jingo

sorb   orris   nigrosin

I join   in Þis song o’

gibbon-origin       gó

nó sin   Þorn      nog  

rosin   iron      sign

I join      bóÞ

griss—n—bison

bóÞ

job—n—boss

bóÞ

son—n—biro in Þis song

( )—n—( )   noÞings

rising   norÞ

The Icelandic letter Þ – pronounced something like ‘th’ – has no equivalent in English. My use of it in English words is obviously ‘wrong’. I have taken this liberty in the spirit of irreverent fun, and to reflect the musical innovation of Jonsi and Sigur Ros themselves, specifically in the constructed lyrical ‘language’ Volenska (or ‘Hopelandic’) used throughout the album ( ). Effectively glossolalia, Volenska has no semantic meaning but contains some of the sounds found in Icelandic. The poem as a whole, I hope, weaves between sense and lyrical non-sense, evoking the man and the band in its broken textures and images.

24. Deviancy as God

An abnominal for David Gascoyne

A caved saying: dang dingoes dosing!
Vain dogs, ego-divas, edgy agony-codas

Did as David does: danced alone, giddy
And deseeded. Ovid aced yogi’s inane, aged

Voyage. Dived good, snagged a gonad,
Donor in a saved Degas-coven. Navy Dave:

Gay-voice, no novice, delicious screed,
Envoy via avid disco-gods and devices:

Isis, Isis, Isis! End, End, End. Diane (ye say),
Even a cage goes Cubic under sand. Savvy?

Doice vita! Said nay and grace, yielded grain.
Gained gander’s voice, never-ending, egads!

Said: soy is no acid. Dos ado! Adios adagio;
Venus, sun, dead-gross adenoids – en garde!

Advance, canvas, vin, coinage, casino, cove.
Dada! Dada! Dada! Goo-goo, gaga, de Dios!

Candid deed, avenged virgin of de Ganges,
A Cash-Cod in a sea o’ dead-end scansion: God

Is not dead, nada can do it. So! Good day – 
Divine tales decanted say no cyanide diagnosed.

23. A Dab-toothed Grin Virus

An abnominal for Sir David Attenborough

A brass adventurist as o’ ages ago; a rough abrader
Against religious agenda; soothing birder, birthroot

O’ great ideas; agitator o’ both hunter and abattoir.
Genius. Our antennae never avoided his adroitness.

Attuned atheist: averse to ignorance but no tussles;
Servant o’ both endangered beasts and good hearts.

Even the trees – Arborvitae, grown-on or evolved,
Arranged high and round – strain to hear him read

His ideas. A dab-hand, a devoted learner-herder, he
Bears gritted-teeth to see a berg damaged or eroded.

No honest brother denies he has grinned as a teen,
At the absurd designation: Great Tit. He told us it,

Didn’t he? Talented author, the best nature narrator,
Avant-gardist: rider o’ religion and Giant Tortoises.

Nineties TV thrived on bandaged stoats and badgers,
Anteaters raiding mounds, sea otters (so overdone).

That shit hasn’t died. But these TV trends, traditions,
He set. Our revisionist brings a told threat to bathos

In his bright, irreverent demeanour. Bite o’ an adder
But no sting; nearer to ‘God’ and other grand designs.

22. Radiance Not as Joke

An abnominal for Joni Eareckson Tada

It’s jest: I need reasoned talk.
Tired ‘anointed’ anecdotes, acts

In adoration and sincere tears:
Racked ears. I’d join in, arise,

Tend to J.C’s needs. Jest don’t
Train none to raise no creek canoeists.

I care, I jest can’t stand – tada! –
In atria or arena, ancient or not.

I don’t condone it. OK – nice
Interior décor, dance: conjoin

Justice and consent; rock-creed,
And credent data I’d reconsider.

Endorse not a C. Dickens on Sin
Distancin’ sickness-and-rejoicin’.

Sound doctrine is as sound
Doctrine does OK, I’m jest

Certain: earnest donation is rooted
In rejection, not erection, o’ Ikons.

So no incensed rant, reekin’ intent,
Nada. Jist a seated caution: radiate,

Resonate, radiocast care-o’ J! Si’ned
An inked nerd, jester, ardent kindred.

21. Shh! (On Up-market Rambo)

An abnominal for Thomas-Mark Burnhope

Shh! Astronaut. UR no amateur,
So keep abreast, man: arrest

That super masked phantom-
Mobster upon moonset.

Make the robber end up
Shammed, bankrupt. Make

The mouse, the satan, abort,
Phone-in another breakout. Put out

That poor, bonkers butthead,
Barnstorm in a BEANO book.

Take armour, photon phaser
Then roam bunker, burnt bush,

Southern Bourne. Ambush, stat!
Pronto, praetor! Parkour-pterosaur!

Our earthborn kin, our heartburn,
UR parents’ horse an’ hansom;

Homespun hunk, pro brontosaur!
An honest-to-host hoot, to boot;

UR mum’s hush-hush astronomer. Bonne nuit,
Master the Maker’s map o’ Mars. – UR Pa an’ Mentor

20. A Jean Riven (2nd draft)

An abnominal for Jean Vanier

Ever je veer,
A naïve jar

In a ravine,
J’ai Ave.

Ever je rave
In vain, jive

In a nave,
A Janvier vine,

Jinn in air, a varia,
J’ai Ave.

Rein in a raven,
Rev near nirvana.

Je venir (?)
Nearer:

A veneer, ajar
In air an’ rain,

Inner-Ire Inn.
Je aver, even

In an ear arena,
J’ai Ave.

19. Mass / Massa

I love Hengistbury Head
where starlings populate
the picnic tables with us;

to think after lunch they will retire
home to write a review of the café,
that the church will hold

Good Friday communion
on the summit, seven am; we
will be stars when it happens.

Then we will go to a neighbouring hotel
for a five-star breakfast,     and I love
that the sky fulfils its mandate to rain.

*

Ego amare Hengistbury Caput
ubi sturni frequentare
in picnic tabulas cum nobis;

Post prandium cogitare recedet
domum scribere review de casu.
quod Ecclesia tenere

Bonum Veneris communionem
in vertice, septem sum; nos
erit sidera cum fit.

Tunc ad proximum velit
enim a quinque-stella prandium, et diligere
quod caelum implet eius mandatum ad pluant.

*

I love the Hengistbury Head
where starlings to frequent
the picnic tables with us;

After lunch depart to think
home to write a review of the case.
Church to hold

Good Friday Communion
on the top of the seven. I am us.
The stars will be made​​.

Then the next will
for the five-star dinner and love
that fulfills its mandate of heaven to pour down.

*

Ego amare Hengistbury Caput

ubi sturni frequentare
in picnic tabulas cum nobis;

Post prandium discedere cogitare
patria feugiat causa.

Ecclesia tenere

Bonum Veneris communionem

nos desuper mihi septem

sidera fieri.

Tunc proximus

Lucifer quinque cenam diligere

quod implet eius mandatum caeli ad effunde.

*

I love the Hengistbury Head
where starlings to frequent
picnic tables with us.

After lunch depart to think
the country here.

Church to hold

Good Friday Communion

I have seven of us, from above
stars to be made.

Then the next
five-star dinner in love

which fills the heavens to pour out his desire.

18. Snake

sn@ke

According to the book of Genesis Satan once crawled, all four claws to the grass. I crawl as well (bottom-shuffle if doing the stairs). Sometimes I wonder if maybe I am a host for him, a carrier: so he is entwined in veins, arteries, yes, but also VP shunt invasively planted from brain to journey's-underbelly. I wear him in the bath as both a second-skin and an internal foreign object, buoyant, green. We are sin together; neither one can breach a purity boundary on his own. I am torn: so our relationship is totally undesirable. But without my Shibari-brother, would I have been able to learn desire at all? Would I know how to make love, fuck well, tie my shoelaces with these dysfunctional cripple-fingers? When the apple tasted as sweet on Eve's tongue as it had looked on Adam's eye, did she imagine the rosebud nipple of a submissive, lady-missionary, sister-bride? Did she watch it open? The psalm of David so often quoted: taste and see that the Lord is... evoking all of Solomon's plush main courses. Did God really say they must not eat... ? What if an olive branch grows in a shower, landslide after a monsoon, a reef? May I never elect to dive down, a proactive swine to a pearl?

17. Orang-utans

or&gutans

As a child I holidayed twice in Disney World. While I was there the first time, we watched a variety show featuring animals made famous in feature films. I remember two orang-utans performing 'tasks' like raspberry-blowing, hopping from stool to kitchen-top, clapping. I was enthralled, had thought that to see those, you had to go all the way to Borneo. This itinerant cast has travelled the globe the park's brochure said. Shameful numbers of years afterwards, I remembered the houses on the outskirts, pressed flat against the scrubs-white Mecca-to-pleasure, housing the caretakers of the Blackened Ears. I saw South Africa townships made of tin next to silver cities made of money (if you flicked these cities against a glass, they chinked like coins), and on TV, the time it takes to go from rainforest to cage to pedestal. I went to Barcelona, am going again this year, although haven't been to Borneo yet. I managed to undermine actual-Mecca more than once, both in writing and in speech. Regret and nostalgia: two orang-utans facing one another, trying to fashion tools from America, neither of them in any film I know.

16. A Quatrain

Everything is differently-abled.
Nothing walks to far before it either
Breaks or takes the weight of another.
Everything is needlessly labelled.

15. Hereby Love Unpin

An abnominal for Evie-Lyn Burnhope

Our bubble, lil' blip,
Breve eerily born;

Be envoy, eyehole, helper,
Inhere, herein, unhere;

Heron, heroine, holy union,
Honeybee -- hip hopper;

Our hourly hyperbole,
Linen burn, inner irony;

Love, lively in lieu o' hope --
Eloper in liver, lobe, loin;

Be neverlore, nil, none, nope,
Noun, novel, oeuvre: her.

Our only open leyline: olive,
Orb, ore, phoney oven-bun!

On hill, on pier, I pine -- pin-
Bonny, hill peony, lil' plover,

Proven open pore, pure prier,
Be hyper, ripe. Reopen. Relive.

Unborn, uneven, unveil
Your verb, yelp.  

14. A Jean Riven

An abnominal for Jean Vanier

Ever je veer,
a naive jar

in a ravine,
j'ai Ave.

Ever je vena
in vein, rave

in vane, vina
in vine an' jive

in a nave, a Jinn
in air, a varia...

j'ai Ave.
Rein in a raven,

rev near nirvana.
Je venir (?)

in Janvier
air an' rain,

an Ire inn,
an' je aver, even

ajar, in an inner-
ear arena, j'ai Ave. 

13. Broken Solo Renga IV

Snow-covered cliff bench
inscribed with two names and dates –
their mute white wedding.

With fleeting need for relief,
the seasons rise, dip, lie, sleep.

12. Broken Solo Renga III

Polythene bag, leaf –
first and last of the Summer
on Fisherman’s Walk.

Their feet brush the gravel path
with the moon’s masking fluid.

11. Broken Solo Renga II

A black-headed gull
wears a brown balaclava –
no one’s skin has tanned.

One reason to mask the face:
wind’s indiscriminate burn.

10. Broken Solo Renga I

Spring leaf, Bournemouth bus –
both wheel high by the playschool
until their routes end.

All day long sing the children,

their schedules growing fuller.

NaPoWriMo9: I Am Odd Craven

An abnominal for David Cameron

A camcorder? Come on den, Mr,
A dare: video me doon common.

Record me road on CD and DVD.
Deem, and re-deem me (in code):

Vacuous criminal. O mon acrid Con-
Dem cad, midd'man no one needed

Carved in avarice no’ candor. Aidman,
Medic – no one I admire, or ever did;

A dad, canned in a maniac cameo,
Dire comedian, a drier Avid Merrion;

No’ even a canard, cod in a marinade,
Cider, caviar, anodic cadaver on a divan;

A dram, a drone, a doer, a nice idea,
An icon, an income, a divine invader;

I dreamed I danced in an anaemic void,
A revered deacon in a coma, near-dead.

I carried an I.D. card, read: Never come
Near me! Advanced cancer! Reader, no

Economic arena armed me, an avoider.
Receive me, O Can-Do-Man! Amen.

NaPoWriMo8: Whipper in, Lad!

An abnominal for Andrew Philip

When sparred, win;
Reap reward in lead and pen.

When hindered, ill,
Plan and nail a wilder reel.

Delphian piper, shrill siren,
Drain and din nae-endin’,

Wander deadened lane and land,
Render a pariah healed

In laden-heid, dry-heel,
Raw-pain hip, peripheral ail.

Ne’er drain a red drip;
Wear his Laird’s plaid and help.

Repel all pinhead, linear war.
Wield an inward, radial hinner,

Happier allied wi’ a Philippian line.
Heir wi’ his heid laid in hea’en,

Heap, pile, drap a lid on dire peril;
Hae air rap and plane him wi’ hail.

Padre de Aidan, wee pearl: new deer
Leapin’ adder, drywall, rail, alder,

Dine in wi’ a lap dinner,
Dear winner, hill, hairpin, hame.

NaPoWriMo7: Abnominal

I have fallen a day behind! This poem should have been posted here yesterday, but I got waylaid. The poem is an abnominal, a form devised by Andrew Philip. The creation of an abnominal is as fun and exciting as it is surprising and mind-bendingly challenging. In the end, I found it to be an excellent form for a tribute poem (which is what it is, essentially). Without further ado, here are the rules, followed by my poem, written for my partner.

The poem must use only words that contain letters found in the name of the dedicatee.

The poem should be 20 lines long.

It should be arranged in two-line stanzas, although other arrangements are permissible.

Each stanza — or every two lines, if another arrangement is used — should contain each individual letter of the dedicatee’s name at least once.*

The opening and closing line should address or refer to the dedicatee in some form, with a strong preference for not using the name. However, the address in line 20 must not be a simple repetition of that in line 1; there must be some difference/transformation.

There are no stipulations for line length or other metrical constraints.

The title must be an anagaram of the dedicatee’s name.

---

Hurrah! Sober on Piranhas!

An abnominal for Sarah Harrison-Burnhope

So, is she Le One? Oui! Si!
She has been. Pinup: U R ON

LE BRAIN upon piers’ rails.
Narnian sun, san’, shore,

Lan’-‘rain o’er here. Hop on!
Brap! Shamo(ne) (one's a hen).

Nae pain. Soar in brine-airs,
hon; hear no ruse or harassin’.

Hair raisin-broon; near bulb-
Solar – on a par. Son-bearer,

A plush pair o’ (blush). Sleep
In, an’ – aye – snore sub-bass.

Hail our Ash S. Raise a posh /
Brash session parsin’ real ales,

Nosh; pissin’ oursel’s LOLin’
(Herps, P.R.A.S*, lesbianism).

Sea. Splish-splash-splosh!
Reasons are borin’ bull-sh…

Ass-o’er-heels, I bless her.
Shine on, lassie: urbanhippie.

*Portsmouth Reptile and Amphibian Society

NaPoWriMo 6: Faithful

Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in
-- Seamus Heaney, ‘Miracle’

Not the one whose daily bed bears his iniquities
Because it was made by a fine village craftsman
Not a corporation.

Not the one who nails his hands to both
Stretcher handles mentally, in case his friends try
Abruptly to tip him off.

Not the friends who, in the beginning, were sold
On his humour, bought his struggles, levelled
His militant-victim scales.

But the one who, if he can bank on gossip about
A blind man, comes unskilled in silver-glossolalia
And offers a clean hand.

NaPoWriMo 5: Mallard, the Gentleman's Game

Bird of bitter, sarcastic artistry.
I mean, the way he was drawn...

exploded Cubist snooker table almost.
Head upholstered in green, stapled
holy and high-class to a cleric’s collar;
pride of every single pond in England.

Then all the balls burst over his body!
Cue-brown, breast-red, yolk-yellow
struck along the beak, to tap black;
chalk-cube-blue if his wings splay out.

Me Old Ducker, you had better
watch out where those are shot.

NaPoWriMo4: Eunuch

She braces her body,

a dromedary

for water, bedchamber

alive with pangs.

Curse this lengthening want

for an older night;

desire, dispensation, devotion,

a son – a lack

marks

us of the clean, white cloth.

NaPoWriMo3: The Water Rail and Moses

You'll notice I didn't put NaPo2 in here yesterday. The reason is that the formatting was just too weird to transfer it from my thread on PFFA, its original spot on the Internet, to the blog. That'll teach me to keep away from too much typographic experimentation during these things! But on that note, here is day three:

The Water Rail and Moses
 
She transgresses warm waters:
distorted kiwi, beak too short
and bright to be a curlew's;

wears a similar fibre-blend
of brown-tan feathers.
Her eyes are dabs of blood.

Had her feet
trod the ancient reeds,
her sharming might have grown

the boy's call sufficiently on
to fruition (frogs, lice, flies,
locusts, all a day's plague

to a migrant rail):
a series of grunts, followed by
a high-pitched piglet-squeal

ending in the purring of contented
squirrels (the territorial claim,
alarm, announcement).

She dips for food, and I am made
to remember manna, her mouth
a pillar of fire with a reed's girth.

NaPoWriMo1: Sevenling (If I am fearful...)

If I am fearful at all, it is because these days
velociraptors come complete with bazookas,
ride great white sharks bareback like a bau5.

We’re underp @tack. I scrawl rage comic
across my shoulders, insanity wolf howling.
When you see it, you’ll brick shit-hau5ing.

I privatise the memes to reform my fears.