DB Fishman

If | Destroyed | Still | True

Remnant King

The Ghost of Lacunae

In Prism

Cracked

End of Day

The Irish make it look Fun

The Way Lil Wayne Says ‘Pussy’

Flowers for Django

Haunting of Sound

The Other Face of Spectacle Wearers

Transient Sentience

Made of Scrap Metal & Fish Bones

A Backstage Pass to Life

Scrimshaw

Harbour

Haemorrhage Pastoral

Stole Away

The Worst of all Possible Fates

Gift

…Hilarity Ensues…

[Scene from an Economic Revolt]

Paring Off

Your Shoes are Ghastly and at Heart You’re a Cannibal

Prayer

Remnant King

On the greyscaled slabs of pavement Of night begun, not yet dark The stone of some fruit lies Ruby red and spat out Ragged, like a chunk of throat

2012

The Ghost of Lacunae

At night, I sleep furiously and Dream of confessing Awakening shaken – unable To recall my crimes.

2012

In Prism

Long – solid – hot Candy pink Neon striplights Running off, without end, Into distance Along – up – through Chambers of mirrored Edges, glass & Polished flawless Metal angles, a Kaleidoscope of Geometry and infinite Reflections; a web of Pure rich light Ungraspable, threaded On untouched through An endless trap It’ll take many a Manila envelope Of cherry blossom To get us Out of this. 2012

Cracked

A gnarled branch wends Its silhouette against nightfall: An irreparable fissure Through the firmament And beneath, the thin, pale Blue-green vein of a lightning Conductor winds down from the Church spire just in case

2012

End of Day

Like some staggering, collapsing descent into the mire Falling in

big, shuddering steps down

One by one, against the church’s High, vaulted ceiling sets Of lights go off, matching The stained window To the night outside.

2012

The Irish make it look Fun

Under the shifting colour walls of Piccadilly Circus’s Digital billboards - now a Quaint four storey barrage in A scraped-sky world - A piper huffs, & stops & starts, Before the tourist cameras, Trying to get himself in tune And facing him Across the junction A big roadworks Announcement sign Announces, in its Bullet-hole orange bulbs: ‘CONTROLLED DRINKING AREA’

2012

The Way Lil Wayne Says ‘Pussy’

Headed cocked back, ready To, bobbing, launch the plosive, lips Popping before falling in- -to the tight, curled thin Grin of a shark toying flirtatious With potential prey, shattered New Orleans creaking drawl Breaking into flowing Sibilance, drawn out, savouring The sound, a satisfied Nod, ending with a >Hiccup< lights catching Dancing off the broken Rocks diamond-encrusted

teeth.

2012

Flowers for Django The eighteen year old Manouche Traversing night after a performance Returns to his new wife, to his caravan Filled with the thick waxen curves Of flowers made of celluloid, for selling, But bending down at the sound Of some phantom mouse, the candle Drops, lighting the touchpaper — Engulfed in the roar of flame They somehow collapse into air But the right leg, the left arm burned The gypsy’s half the man he was With only two-fingered mobility - Tendons on the left hand, shrunk In the heat, pinning The other two to the palm - Recuperating, he creates A new technique, for two-fingered soloing Following American jazz, improvising Never the same solo twice; This calm, dapper Belgian With immaculate moustache, Those fingers seizing, gripping The strings like angered birds, Spritely letting fly those Jumping runs of notes At belief-defying speed - Swift and graceful - To mastery of his craft

2012

Haunting of Sound When the deaf touring party Somehow become divided They call ‘Hoo’ in an effort to reassemble In a flurry of delicate gestures Intended for catching eyes The call of absent owls reaches these multi-storey canyons

2012

The Other Face of Spectacle Wearers The frame of the everyday A shorthand for appearance But disassemble the mask, beneath: Genetics & personal history

A secret populace Unrecognisable after removal Revealed: a new identity, new Faces, strangers to colleagues, familiars These short-sighted sleeper cells Faces only uncovered As days are ending Just before The lights go out

2012

Transient Sentience The Doppler effect of A passing thought From formlessness into The forefront and then Falling back into Dissolute darkness; A ‘70s sci-fi swoosh Of a memory Returning, vivid but Briefly, only To fade away leaving You free

2012

Made of Scrap Metal & Fish Bones The blanched, dilute blue of a morning’s first fullness Seen from the other side of night A smattering of circling seagulls crown The towerblock like a halo

2012

A Backstage Pass to Life To be stood in the centre Of town as the morning Rush hour dissipates, crowds Absorbed, inhaled Into the buildings, leaving Those weekday mid-morning Empty spaces – space You’ve created, jacked out Of time’s segmented flow, knowing The classroom doors Have now somewhere closed, the Conversations ended, thoughts Settled down; and they don’t Know where you are, unobserved In the silence of public Parks, walking the streets of Families gone to work - like Looking up at Residential buildings on Your holiday in crisp Early morning air grasping that You occupy the same space as, But have stepped aside From, everyday life - you’re Leftover, amongst pigeons, Bus drivers, looking where You’re not pointed, a sense Of disobedience driving You forward, now trying Learning, gambling on Free motion.

2012

Scrimshaw Writing onto bone Etching scenes carved Into vast teeth. Just think about that. Tempests & creatures from the deep Home and family, birds, your ship An unofficial record, the product Of time passed Months, years off steady ground Arctic waiting, for the clashes Then stabbing into the infinite dark Fluidity beneath Hooking with harpoons Before lancing for the heart The threat of being taken under And blood awash underfoot All straining in the balance Hauling these dying leviathans, Near as great as the ship itself, Up and over the gunwales And then, the dismantling, disassembling The carve up, blubber boiling And a sail needle, blades picking at The material dug out what remains Perhaps a flat panel Hewn and dyed with patience To sit at a corset centre Over a far heart And today people walk beneath A jawbone archway, oblivious Never thinking, beneath the bones, The far depths from which they were pulled.

2012

Harbour Before the gradient To darkest into lighter At the edge of the Immeasurable expanse A held speck, a Loose thread of the Vast tapestry curtailed From the great body A still-connected eddy, a shunt For keel injections; this Walled enclave, built shelter Where the movement and Thrashings of the wide open are Starkly absent; a pooled Segment held in calm, a Sampling to dip your toe in, And raising its ensconced Containment to your ear you Hear the sound: a Weary, wet resigned Sighing, pulled along by Riptide inhalations of Tireless determination

2012

Haemorrhage Pastoral In the middle of the field On a countryside hillside Like the tell-tale indication of A subaquatic detonation / A frozen, blossoming explosion Casting its lengthy shadow / An oasis of unbridled, warping distortion Bleeding out of the linear order The copse about the old tree Worked around in the ploughed field An insurmountable memorial to nature When it was unassailable, free.

2012

Stole Away

R.R. 6.12.1956 – 19.3.1982

Ozzy Osbourne’s solo albums Aren’t renowned for consistency: The obligatory ballads, ham- -fisted politics, the sentimentality But Ozzy Live [the second disc on the back of Diary’s 30th anniversary edition] is just four guys Playing as a band – no Lennonesque vocal reverbs, Overdubs or expensive ‘80s Studio work – possibly On a temporary stage, Middle of nowhere, Gathering the crowd, perhaps As evening starts to turn, And it might just be His best [and given even this includes a turgid 6 minute run through ‘Revelation (Mother Earth)’ and a 4 minute drum solo, that’s saying something]. The desperate American-accented stage Patter is there, but so are The Ozzy melodies, and Randy Rhoads playing through The best of those first two Oz solo albums he’s Bridging the gap between In a spasming, squalling wall of Electric noise Is almost Hendrix, at his most

Raw-sound-controlling Ripping the soul out of your chest And throwing it To the sky

2012

The Worst of all Possible Fates To live a life that makes no sound Or at least none that is heard Or perhaps even None that is worth hearing

2012

Gift

for A.

Walking the black space Of the Woodstock Road Homewards, I carry with me The gift Of the flower Of this streetlight In night fog With me, the Illuminated Branches striking from it Brain pathways, bright with Thoughts subsuming out Into the nothing Background radiation Veins pulsing With the warmth I’m bringing home To you

2012

…Hilarity Ensues… The happy family Headed home after a long day I don’t hear what starts it The first I see Is the elder daughter walking To the carriage’s back seat And curling up foetal, small, Facing the wall Her mother’s eyes snap A darting glare In her wake And then the parents are Getting into it He’s trying to placate She’s reached her limit, Wild-eyed - I can’t tell How much the daughters hear Eventually the elder daughter Gets up and walks to sit Next to her father, embracing, Face puffy and wet And still they carry on His resignation provoking; Aunts distracting younger daughter From his fixed, unseeing stare And I don’t know if it’s Just because I’ve stood up to leave But my heart is pounding fit To break my sternum

2012

[Scene from an Economic Revolt] A spa resort in the mountains - Far from upheaval, the unrest Just hinted at by the distant Droning pass of heavy aircraft – Rich and stylized successes Shimmering under the soft Lighting and camera flashes Wade, chest deep, through the steam Rising off the heated Outdoor pool, when Someone drifting by On the surface collides with An aging gentleman (swept white hair – tan - gold medallion) and as he turns To push the figure away He feels the overcooked Loose, boiled texture Of the corpse. And From above we see, Through the steam Being blown clear, Skeletal bodies floating In the water, coloured blood red; it’s living Inhabitants and the extras Retreating back to land As rain starts falling, Realising the offstage Unrest is now Closer than they thought.

2012

Paring Off I’m reminded of the recent Scientific revision that Alcohol does not in fact kill Brain cells but rather stops them From interconnecting, leaving Them adrift, isolated – A far more chilling proposition – Like every speck of an image Dispersed but still present Inaccessible & suffocating like Alzheimer’s memories.

2012

Your Shoes are Ghastly and at Heart You’re a Cannibal There are very few decisions required To survive a life, provided You stay on the prepared rails People confuse what they don’t do – their inaction, obedience - with Morally good behaviour And feel more affinity For their television than their Neighbour, fellow man Choosing what you point Your face at isn’t A position of control Drowning in an excess Of decadent distraction, Palliative entertainment All is caught within capitalism Each round of rebellion’s Co-opted, then corrupted Your most valuable possession Could be your smile – here’s What you need to buy to make it so. I’m tired of gender’s Arbitrary connotations, its Binding (sublimated) constructs Tired of sated ignorance, its Flipside air of entitlement, of Talking life without engagement Being a good liar is A lifeskill with the principle ‘Getting away with it’ But to not know what You worked for means never Knowing what you deserve

Would you Survive In the wild? This is The End of Empire and The Death of Religion, a Free, clean slate, an Opportunity for clarity Tradition is the worst reason For doing anything This is the clear air to build in From the ground up Ask yourself

2012

Prayer Placing palms to floorboards

Followed by forehead

The now-common screen trope trying

To understand a new preoccupation

Peaceful moments of contemplation

Cut into the speed and confrontation

Placing palms to floorboards

Followed by the forehead

2012