20.0b

... a much for we ...

Dylan Harris

20.0b

... a much for we ...

Dylan Harris

Potato Press

Some of these poems have appeared in Inclement, Subverse, Never Bury Poetry, Black Rose and Borderlines.

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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Published by Potato Press

Lëtzebuerg

http://dylanharris.org/

potato@dylanharris.org

(Specify “20.0b” in the subject line of any email)

Recitals of some of these poems may be found online

Poems

gentle

New Year’s Eves

I Don’t Visit My Mother’s Grave

What Do Lemmings Eat?

We, The Fell

... a much for we ...

... And Then I’ll Break The Sea

An Eighteenth Century Beam Engine

later

It’s My Hands

Intruder Alert

My Difficulty With Melancholy

i’d prefer to remember summer

A Simple Fantasy

Sweet And Stupid

Software Engineering

gentle

the rain must have sprinted down

yet above the consequential rising mist

is an empty open sky moonlight night

and horizon just once cloud mountains

dark and highlit in gentle silver black

like seeing the stars through fine girl hair

when you’re sitting alone outside night talking

on an unseen bench in the summer dark heat

away from the far heard strong celebration

with a fresh wind carrying her feminine smell

and the gentle hush of her speak

New Year’s Eves

In a pub of pensioned men

and stale décor,

two newly women enter:

one fires her smile.

She’s young and tough,

and her hair says she’s trying too hard,

and she’s occupying clothes

that leave so much caress undressed:

she’s raw, her own self–portrait.

But that glance was mercantile:

I was about to buy a drink.

Yet the smile was welcome,

like the scent of shocked basil

on a humid summer day.

I Don’t Visit My Mother’s Grave

I don’t visit my mother’s grave;

a stone, a church yard;

these are my sister’s symbols,

not mine.

I keep my mother in my head,

all the spirit of her,

a mother alone,

and all the consequences

when she couldn’t really cope

with bringing up a thinking boy

she didn’t understand.

We needed my father,

whom fate destroyed.

I don’t visit my mother’s grave:

I carry it.

What Do Lemmings Eat?

What do lemmings eat?

Why, of course, its obvious!

What, you haven’t worked it out?

Well, ask a different question:

what do lemmings do?

Why, of course, they lem;

they lem on yellow Citrus fruit.

What do pigeons do?

Why, of course, they pidge, and

they’ve pidged all over my car,

the horrible, horrible things.

And what do katkins eat?

Why, of course, they eat…

Yearch! “How horrible!

Come here, poor puss–cat,

poor tiddle–possum,

we won’t let those nasty plants eat you, will we: No!”

Now, those dead mice you leave in the lounge…

And what do dolphins do

why, of course, they dolph around,

they chortle in the sea,

wasting time in playful fuss,

not doing any work.

What lazy fun—

we can’t have that—

no dole for them, ha ha.

And what do muffins do? Well,

it's actually quite disgusting

as disgusting people know.

I, of course, am innocent,

all I’ll say is “mule”.

We, The Fell

Oh wow! I haven’t had a decent fight

for years. But let’s not fight with brutal might,

the Net denies the real, and virtual war

is bland. Let’s fight with brutal words, the core

of words, in poetry, with lines of verse

in sonnet form. I challenge you, disperse

the crude, excite your skills, be rude with charm,

not teenage curse nor childish snap, but calm

and contemplative bile. The victor gets

the girl. The loser knows a fight well met

and lost is no disgrace. And if there’s fire,

if what we write has power, we’ll burn the pyre

of formulaic prejudice, the hell

of puritan ideal. We’ll be the fell.

... a much for we ...

She has no flaw, that her, she put upon

a plinth, be polish once a day. This none

a wishful doze of I, for I concern

to share and hear, a crusty cheer, a yearn

of we’re, the ’uns their gear, I’m slowing dear,

the compromise of kith as someones real.

The daily fem has rough ascribe the heart;

unsanded personality, no dark

of past, comprehending null, a scour.

Since every her is real, the one to flower

is she of fault by skin or eye: such fleck,

like packaging, is simple to respect;

which leave the only damn to bar the see

as mine, a manitude, a much for we.

... And Then I’ll Break The Sea

This forest

unlike the myths of concrete times

contains the old,

the dank and breathed–in smell of Earth,

instinctifying air.

Here,

you have to reach the seas

before you die.

It’s you and no technology

simply walking means

you’ll never smell

the acridity of salt.

“Run, run”,

the captains cry

from trains of saddled geese above

“find a stream, and catch us fish,

and we will tell you tales of seas—

they’re gold, and green,

and full of cats

and everyone who’s got there now

is fed by ghosts of porpoises

that dream of rocking floweries

and acting in the Scottish play.”

“Run, run”,

I curse myself,

wanting being first today,

an elephant in trunks.

Oh dear, I trip,

and lie for life,

and watch the forest melt to love

as I relax for weeks.

I see the sea beside me;

I turn and touch the salt.

But captains call for me to run;

there’s no–one in the sky.

And captains plant synthetic wants

relaxing jars and run I should.

The forest grows,

and run I shall.

Oh, worshipped work,

my dream’s to break the sea.

An Eighteenth Century Beam Engine

An Eighteenth century beam engine,

solid,

fixed,

simple, with central power,

a church of steam.

An engineer approached,

and created

sharp movement of spiking light,

a natural power directed, dangerous,

water torn with untiring ferocity.

Its true purpose, he said, is to

pump the mine dry.

An artist approaches,

and savours

wild yet predicted movement,

bitter, nasal charcoal,

a noise like Hades imagined,

steam jetting from each and every joint.

Its true purpose, she says, is to

subjegate the senses.

A shaded man approaches

and ignores,

he counts his beans to three,

thinks of four,

he imagines rows of black and time,

a regiment of flies.

Its true purpose, he says,

is my lust.

later

i’m not exactly brilliant

but you screwed up as much

instead of surfing this wanted insanity

you tried to manage

a so professional voice

i need a lover

not a mother

It’s My Hands

It’s my hands

that are addicted.

When I have a soft–skinned lover,

they’ll caress her,

warming.

But when she’s elsewhere

they’ll stroke anything

smooth and neutral.

Railings and banisters,

desktop and mouse,

pint glass and bar.

Intruder Alert

A conference theatre, unfilled, the field;

green folding chairs, strewn open, the crop.

Some poor woman, older, robust, sexless to me,

sits, cross angled.

Her seat shifts, becomes a vice;

her fingers, trapped, raped, crushed.

Her shouts scorch, stark pain,

boiling crescendo. People rush. Not me.

I am shock still,

stunned by lust, by shame.

I can’t forgive me this.

I can’t.

My Difficulty With Melancholy

Melancholy fills my eyes like soap,

burning away the glamour of hope;

this drama of darkness is ruined by my cheer:

that rhyme made me :-). I’m off for a beer.

i’d prefer to remember summer

cold november rain

early dark depressing

i remember sun striking warm

there’s someone of eye fire and feminine

lithe love ripe

laser of thought

her man makes her ill with joy

intensity such happiness

how could i ever dare challenge

yet she in her feminine the feminine way

opportuned me her penchant for complication

i love too much to dare acknowledge

for i am a destroyer

now cold november’s rain

she’s moved beyond

yet i compare all

it’s unpleasent

my necessary betrayal

i must ride

Ovid’s “Remedia Amores”

hard journey

i can’t be november forever

A Simple Fantasy

I wish you at my fantasy villa

on a fresh sun high–spring day,

where, affront the vineyards and sounded waters,

I’ll carry you to our noon life lore.

Washed by running children,

their rhythm of pounding

living our bright uneven world,

its afternoon dust

fresh spark light.

Our sons and daughters,

their selves alone,

will shine in fierce memory.

And you’ll bury me,

whilst our grandchildren

become emperors of space,

like flowers.

We’ll love each other dead.

Sweet And Stupid

Please don’t tickle that,

I’m standing on it.

There’s more to me

than land between leaps.

Next time, I’ll dress

before you claw climb my leg.

I’m sure my best trousers

had fewer holes.

How can you sleep there,

one roll, two stories from stone?

Please do not claw me there;

I might want children.

I got you down from that tree,

why rush back up?

Dratted kitten

(again)!

Software Engineering

1.

“Go to The Great Mountain Of The South”,

the boss man pays.

“Where’s that?”,

the engineer replies.

“Well, er, to the South! It’s obvious.”

“I’ve not been there before.”

“No one’s been there before.

Walk south for a thousand miles

and you’re bound to see a lump on the horizon.

That’ll be The Great Mountain of the South.

They say it smokes; probably cheroots;

that’s the kind of thing a mountain ought to smoke.

Shouldn’t take you an hour.

Here, have a banana.”

“How do you know?”

“Hold a ruler up to the horizon

and measured the height of the church roof.

The sun shines on the number one.

It’s obvious.”

“Pah!”

“Don’t you Pah! me, little man.

I’ve a degree in art fart sociopath.

I know.

Now go.”

“Yes sir, yes sir,

thank you for the pay packet,

kind sir.”

2.

walk across the room

no no no

not like that

here’s a diagram

put your feet here here and here

that’s twice on the floor

and once on the wall

everything’s been thought

by our pet architect

he always says yes

of course it can be done

it’s a pity he’s resigned

his mother died again

if you find the banana

when you get to the other side

bring it to me

3.

It’s not so good

being the failed superhero

‘computer repair man’

when a pretty woman

with excited eyes

finds a true excuse

to bring me to her private rooms.

“In order to identify the problem,

I need to conduct a system test”.

I turn the computer on,

move the mouse,

click the keys,

and see her pleasure fade

like the last train leaving

as I discover

she needs to find five hundred pound,

her machine’s beyond repair.

Oh, to be a fertility God,

“in order to identify the problem,

I need to conduct a system test,

please relax, undress;

and enjoy.”

Some fantasies are so lightweight.

10.3.7

20.0b ... a much for we ...

A Chapbook of poetry from Dylan Harris

20.0b Dylan Harris poetry poems

(c) 2000-2004 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