19.8a

Darmstadt

Dylan Harris

19.8a

Darmstadt

Dylan Harris

Potato Press

Some of these poems have appeared in Krax, Never Bury Poetry, Moonstone, First Time, Page 84 and Breathe.

by Dylan Harris

4 anticipating the metaverse, 3 nation six dog, 2 discard

chapbooks

20.0: r dye-de-ho, q antwerp, p tension nitro ego, o church is dangerous vital, n tin rush, m the A rush, l an engineering rush (ii), k Miss Demeanour, j flock state, i be infinity, h Namings, g nation six dog, f uncivil law, e dead write, d chase chase, c an engineering rush (i), b a much for we, a The Joy Of Tax

19.9: c Inn, b Swoop, a An Ode To The A14

19.8: c Rose, b Hymnen, a Darmstadt

Copyright © 1985-2006, Dylan Harris

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Published by Potato Press

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Recitals of some of these poems may be found online

Poems

Nursery Verse For Nursery Heads

Darmstadt

Cheese And Onion Sandwiches

ici, pour les enfants

Sunlit Gloom

North Of Kylesku

Chopin And The Chilli Wars

“Limericks”

Too Fast To Stop

Scenes From A Blackpool Conference

Guinness

Leicester Square

These Words, They Were Not Said

Working For...

Nursery Verse For Nursery Heads

Hear the twinkles scrambled down for cash alone,

a have-to-scratch, a keeps–on–itching scab of sound,

the lyrics rhyme like you’re a cat

and someone’s stamping on your tail;

nursery verse for nursery heads.

Those sneering noises still fix anger in my thoughts

with junky tunes injected every spin;

emptying souls of sensibility

like ammonia empties eyes of sight:

nursery verse in nursery heads.

Oh, consumer kings, oh how you show respect

to those addicted to your same again:

nursery verse from nursery heads.

Darmstadt

A cold and miserable morning,

with drizzle as fine as flour

drifting through the shop doors

before the crushing hour,

welcomed by the sweet warmth

of heaters on at full power.

Seated in the café

with tongue being brought alive

by coffee as strong as weak chilli.

I see no trams outside;

the rush hour has somehow not started

the square’s as empty as night.

A statue gazes forlornly

at Darmstadt’s concrete blight.

Cheese And Onion Sandwiches

My contracting job’s ironical perk,

from people who laze in permanent work,

is packets of starch, ordered from high,

that only the starved could willingly buy.

The onion is brown, with papery taint,

the bread could be slime, solid with paint.

The cheese, like the beer from north of the Gap,

seems watery, poor, and passed from a cat.

I’ll tell you a secret: at three in the morning

the maker goes creeping with miserly daring,

tiptoeing, ferretting, digging in bins,

searching with caution for horrible things

to put between slices the following day

for which I’m expected to bleeding well pay!

Well I won’t!

’Cos I will decide when I go for a ride.

ici, pour les enfants

I’ll make a little money

selling some simple thing

to be bought, and thrown away,

and bought again another day—

I’ll make a little money.

I’ll appeal to people’s vanity

or maybe make things easier:

a simple thing that’s fairly cheap

and can be bought, without a thought—

I’ll make a little money.

I’ll build it in the cheapest way

and what minor stuff I’ll throw away

won’t hurt all that very much—

it isn’t really worth a fuss—

and I’ll make a little money.

I could make things a safer way

but then I’d have more to pay

and my customers would shy away—

and you’re the ones who buy, and buy—

and I make a little money.

I’ll make a little money

satisfying some daft demand

for plastic cats, or gnomes that talk,

or books about the drunken walk—

I’ll make a little money.

Sunlit Gloom

The blue skies are grey,

the warm sun beams thunderclaps,

and the dust sparkling the air

is dark and freezing rain.

She hasn’t smiled for a week.

North Of Kylesku

At the Telephone Line Inspectorate

a man whose face was frozen with the taste

of rotten cooking apples looks appalled

at his not–so–shiny ageing tidy table

where lies a photo: Scottish mountainside

a hill with ice where water once had falled,

an open loch with waves which would enable

an early morning mist to softly rise,

a pair of peaks standing strongly over sea

and isles afar: making for a vision

to inspire a photographer’s delight;

or thunderstorms punching with the sea

at the stolid, stubborn fixed decision

of cliff to arise from water’s darkened might.

He grabs the phone, and, at the third attempt,

gets another sour face little man

sitting in an ageing mourning suit.

saying: “These pictures from the road which you have sent

must be dealt with; now, we have to plan

to wreck the beauty on this fearful route

with pylons for a line to anywhere:

a phone box on a beach that’s never used,

a wire to a house that might one day be built.

Where the cables go, I couldn’t care

just so long as things outstanding are abused,

and this balance is destroyed with visual silt.

For when there are no good things to describe,

the best is nothing more than mediocre,

and there is no beauty anymore

then there can be no one to deride

us as bureaucratic, as if we ever were.

We’ll make all men like us: paper thunder bores.”

Chopin And The Chilli Wars

Smooth piano in a Chinese living room;

someone put Chopin on to smiles

and plays an autumn evening of white silk dresses

with assumptions just back from the cricket wars.

So a rich Victorian hypocrisy only reveals my own

in a belly whore-house, living room,

whose taste is felt by my listening tongue

as ceiling lines run sharp, drinking Chopin.

The Chilli Wars, piano banging on the fritter front,

coffee dreams of softness under silk;

sugar shouts, a cream launched barrage,

the piano sings a flash of river wings.

And behind it all, hope warms the notes,

and sings harmony into the flavour screams,

and Paris dreams right back at me

of my journey there, tomorrow.

“Limericks”

There Was A Young Lady Called Venus

There was a young lady called Venus

who rather liked having a Guinness:

as dark as hard rock

with foam at the top:

it reminded her of … her Seamus.

There Was A Young Man From Nantucket

There was a young man from Nantucket

whose hermitage was a fire bucket,

’til one day a lady

said “I want”, not “maybe”,

and he took one look and said “oooooh”.

It Wasn’t What I Really Expected

It wasn’t what I really expected

a life which was—well—quite hectik

in 1903

as a bumbling bee

dying from a knee going septik

Too Fast To Stop

The ache in the eyes after twelve hour days

and weekends too fast to stop:

meetings to be, flats to find,

a world to Green, a poetry do ...

But when I have some unused time

I wander through those empty hours

getting up, sitting down, walking round,

only knowing what not to do.

I think what I need is someone else there,

someone to say: “Sit down! Shut up!

Have a cuddle. I care”. Someone else there

to make that empty house a home.

Scenes From A Blackpool Conference

Dog Sea

Lively, frisky, slate–coloured eyes

bounding and bouncing at the hum of the wind,

white like electricity sparking around excited mouths,

roaring forward, desperate to play.

After Eighteen Months

After eighteen months

the ache has subsided to

wishes in the half woken morning.

But plans to search

for a new nervous start

are subdued by a loss of ease.

After Silent Years

After silent years

the dissettled aparachiks

agitate words

conhiding true motives.

Chained from the question,

hollowed of the answer,

they’re too wary

to worry beyond.

But train doors

don’t wait

for stations to stop.

Guinness

Guinness was discovered

in the eleventh century

when Ireland

was off the coast of Africa.

The English were so jealous

of this Irish discovery

they sent a secret army

to paddle on the South side

and move the island north.

But for all their trickery,

and even invasion,

they never found the secret

of the Guinness brew

because, of course,

Guinness isn’t brewed:

it is

(sorry about this)

mined.

Guinness is a hard rock,

rather like coal,

but when it contacts air

chemicals react

making a liquid.

The fossils are born again

as Guinness pigs,

and the occasional lump

is pressed into a disc:

a Guinness record.

Some people

have guessed the secret

and tried to mine Guinness

but,

foolishly,

they search underground

for a black liquid

so,

instead,

they find oil

which doesn’t taste as nice,

but,

still,

it makes them rich.

Ah, Guinness.

Leicester Square

Having missed my chance to see the new ballet

because the magic had left the ‘Hole In The Wall’,

I wandered through still, fuming traffic

under winter trees

full of starlings, sleeping.

I queued for “Highlander”,

bumped by the lovers behind

consumed in each other.

An old American man passed through

with many young people dressed for the night:

couples, pairs, trios,

but no singles, like me.

A placard comes

saying protein causes lust

so eat less eggs, cheese, beef.

Underneath, the voice of a satired vicar

speaks from a middle–aged man

dressed in repression.

A tramp frightened him away

with a comment everyone else heard.

I came out of the cinema into a film,

hearing my footsteps echo around the auditorium,

dodging the actors walking slowly across me,

seeing the special effects

of the blue wail

of the flashing siren

edging past.

These Words, They Were Not Said

Your eyes have been singing in my mind

with power, a symphony of possibility,

with light, a full moon dancing brightness around my darkened self,

with depth, showing from afar the murmur of your soul.

I long to hear the warm rhythm of your heart,

to conduct our desires to selfless fulfilment,

to hear your mind sing to me of love.

Working For…

“Show initiative”

you ballyhoo,

like a rapist politician

howling patriotism.

“We do not carry passengers”

you accuse.

Good—

when do you resign?

I see you,

sitting back,

smug,

porridge–eyed,

and you’ll never admit

that the rocket you sought

said “Brockwell’s”

not “NASA”.

So now it goes up,

a lone flame,

a dark night.

That’s orbit?

And when it crashes

on the bottom line,

will it be the cleaner’s fault

for washing out the tea–leaves?

Will it be the receptionist

for picking up the banker’s call?

But, no, not you—

never in a million egos.

6.6.6

19.8a Darmstadt

Poetry from Dylan Harris

19.8a Dylan Harris poetry poems

(c) 1985-2004 Dylan Harris. This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence 2.0.
See dylanharris.org for details.

2003-12-14T19:12:26