19.9a

An Ode To The A14

Dylan Harris

19.9a

An Ode To The A14

Dylan Harris

Potato Press

Some of these poems have appeared in Never Bury Poetry, Island, Subverse, First Tme, Equinox, Page 84 and Krax.

by Dylan Harris

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

chapbooks

20.0: s chew, 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 © 1985-2007, Dylan Harris

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Recitals of some of these poems may be found online

Poems

Accelerating Is Language English

It Must Be Christmas

The Pub Quiz League

Lost Sanctuary

An Ode To The A14

Tring

Old Funeral Music

Chance Is Such A Scornful God

Of Caroline

The Trumpet Blown

Why I Prefer Schoenberg

Fenland Sketch

Accelerating Is Language English

The fear is not of something new

but “can the mind absorb it?”.

Like helpless dreams, a tension bout,

this fear’s control, to lose it.

Is this where the phobics herd,

who dare not stand nor face it,

and call me rude, a geek or nerd,

if I declare to ride it?

And so I climb the higher path,

accelerating self.

Peacock faces worry up,

huddle. But I’ve done it. I know:

I’ve learnt the new technology,

uncared those sneering weenies.

I turn my back and grin the dawn.

I’m Gawain. They are the was.

It Must Be Christmas

The same repeated, same repeated, same repeated rhythm,

tunes as sweet as desperately needing a piss,

the harmony of insincerity,

the colour of emptiness,

lyrics too simple for nursery verse.

It must be Christmas.

The Pub Quiz League

1.

My social life glows momentarily

on winter Sunday evenings

in The Pub Quiz league.

2.

The newbie knows the taste of blood

is not red, but quiets her mouth;

she feels she lacks “experience”.

A good team needs one who always knows

who methok’d with Abendigo

and sunk the Wurble fleet,

but most of us are ballast.

I’ve got my special anorak

that is hardly ever asked.

3.

An encompassing taste of flowers,

wilting in a hop bitter foliage,

gives gentle colour to the evening.

Lost Sanctuary

Just now, God knows why,

I remembered my long dead mother’s

telephone number.

This odd recollection

gave cold relaxation

to my tired, snappish mood.

The warm welcome

she offered me,

the assurance of food,

the spare bed,

the familiar disagreements,

they were always available.

Now, this sanctuary,

this feel of childhood argument,

this place of reconciliation,

is lost.

An Ode To The A14

The A14, which runs the hundred miles

from Leicestershire to Felixstowe, is crossed

by roads and railway tracks. What truly riles

is in Northants., the bureaucrats, they botched

and built no bridge for walking types – not keen

on those whose journeys don’t pollute. So all

who hike the tourist path along the Nene

must catapult across the cars – the old,

the children, everyone. So I propose,

to take the piss of bureaucratic dross,

to sculpt gigantic trampolines, and pose

a granny, flying through in the air, across

the carriageways. The Angel of the North

be damned: we’ll have The Lady Of The Kilns.

Tring

for Kit Fryatt

In times gone past, it was the norm for men

of words to hide in lines of heartfelt depth

a dark delightful lady. Now I pen

such lines myself, to intimate the breadth

that can be found in tales of many pubs,

or riding on the back of bikes—‘ there’s more,

much more than this’. But now she’s left to floods

of tears, advanced to lordly duties, for

she won the Tring estate at cards. No cars

will run the motorway again, replaced

by fields of black or tannin plants. All bars

will only serve an Irish pint. If chased,

her man will face the cad with daggered scorn

and duel: Mornington Crescent at dawn.

Old Funeral Music

I heard the music once

a decade past:

a hard–paced hysteria

with the darkening of approaching thunder,

the evermore of unceasing clockwork,

the difficult peace of restrained tears.

It had me picture a wake at night,

a burning pyre,

voices in lament.

The music,

the full orchestra,

stopped.

This unfinished silence

led me.

My pyre spat,

the lamenters’ voices scorched.

I invented a dead man’s face

and saw his living conflict.

The music started,

quick marching grief

into the past.

Chance Is Such A Scornful God

This morning

I heard the black news

of a killer crash

on the main line,

I saw a sweet car

garrotted under the strangling wheels

of a red–respecting juggernaut,

I met discordant blue

flashing alarm

on someone

knocked down

and still.

What should I believe?

That Lady Fate is having

‘a bad hair day’,

so people have to hurt?

Chance is pure,

a scornful God,

the God of science,

the only God to give

predictable result.

Of Caroline

Why do I chase the ones who want to be the Taj Mahal:

distant, magnificent, unreachable;

and really the Brighton Pavilion?

The Trumpet Blown

I went to a concert one night—

the church is across from my house—

it turned into quite a good fight:

the horn versus everyone else.

Frank played every note very flat—

or sharp—he found all of the keys.

The tones of those sounds he got out?

You’d think that a foghorn had sneezed.

The orchestra wandered along,

the chorus was actually good,

apart from mute cursing of “Wrong!

I’d staple his lips if I could”.

These problems continued for years

’til concerts in front of a Lord,

who walked from the music in tears—

and Frank, he had put to the sword.

Such murder is highly improper;

the Lord was convicted in court.

But Judge was a music conductor,

so fined him a bottle of port.

You’ll find, when your life is complete,

if down to the torment you’ve fell,

Frank proving, for Satan’s conceit,

from National Anthems comes Hell.

Why I Prefer Schoenberg

There once was a simple salesman,

too crude to sell used cars,

who won the right, in an unfair fight,

to buy his own self–portrait

with violins gleaming grease,

as sweet as concrete.

Fenland Sketch

1.

Ploughing deep furrows in the black wet earth

yields mummified branches of ancient trees.

Rivers run straight as the mythical career of heroes;

old roads meander like comfortable lives.

No hills, nothing for houses to nestle in,

your every deed is seen by your neighbours’ God.

This stark grandeur challenges even self–deception;

you glare back at the emptiness, or you run.

2.

This busy air is cold and bright,

rendering the water in the crossing dykes

a glittering rush of Sharp Blue.

White clouds with the spirit

of steaming liners sprint above me,

while I, in my car, run this road

with no boxes alongside imprisoning streets,

no brick wall bigotry from some chattering suburb;

no metropolitan clutter, no town crowds, just distance.

The photography is here, but I can’t catch it.

But I will; I’ll learn to express my cheer

at this absence, this emptiness.

3.

Cruising on the Nene,

knowing that,

in fifty years time,

with global warming,

I’d be sailing a shallow sea.

Incidentally,

anyone want to buy a house?

Beautiful garden

excellent for vegetables,

prospective fishery rights.

4.

I thank you for your note, in which you write

about the acts you threaten in a bum

caprine. I didn’t say (I’d thought it trite)

that I’m a secret agent for The Scum,

for which I dig in bins throughout the night

(I raid the rich and famous) looking for

hysteria to push in black and white.

To you, I shall admit, I’ve been a bore,

I told my editor the things you say,

I rue my lack of nous. He’s sent a clan

of journalist to hunt around your neigh–

bourhood; he hopes to find a fan of Man–

chester United (we’ve got Beckham un–

der contract). If you wake to see, one day,

a chamoise sweetly tempting in the sun,

resist that goat, for David B, your neigh–

bour’s football God, awaits, binoculars

in hand, to watch. The cameraman will flash

and snap, the journalist will crawl the bars,

pretending he was there. A grand, in cash,

will cheer your neighbour’s life, and you’d go in

a chat show agent list of guests, so low

that all the coucherati sneer your sin;

hypocrisy is good TV, you know.

Of course, I don’t expect all this to make

a difference, to wit, your acumen

in publishing my works. I’ll have my cake

and scoff it, for your moment in The Scum.

10.3.7

19.9a An Ode To The A14

A Chapbook of poetry from Dylan Harris

19.9a Dylan Harris poetry poems

(c) 1990-2004 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