20.0d

chase chase

Dylan Harris

20.0d

chase chase

Dylan Harris

Potato Press

Some of these poems have appeared in Dial 174 and Scrawl.

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

This publication is licensed by the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike Licence 2.5. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/deed.en_GB).

You are free to:

copy, distribute, display, and perform the work

make derivative works

Under the following conditions:

You must give the original author credit

You may not use this work for commercial purposes

If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the licence terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the author. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.

This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code, which may be browsed at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/legalcode.

Published by Potato Press

Lëtzebuerg

http://dylanharris.org/

potato@dylanharris.org

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

Recitals of some of these poems may be found online

Poems

bathroom spider

Elsewhen

Hence The Coldness

Fear In Flight, God

Thoughts On Odes To Nightingales

the three monks

Neil Armstrong Is My Explorer Of The Millennium

Tobacco’s Such A Treat

The Queen Of Santa Fe

Sharp

old man Keats

A Bicycle Criticises Concorde For Not Observing Butterflies

chase chase

bathroom spider

there’s no one in the bathroom but you

you’re using the mirror

you can’t turn round

you have to finish

there’s no one in the mirror but you

the glass fogs

you can’t turn round

you have to finish

there’s no one’s in the steam but you

you’re nearly …

your uncovered neck

is touched

it

is

terrified

Elsewhen

It’s wrong, right,

what youngers do,

daynight.

But,

when I was then,

I did so

too.

Right it was,

then,

that when.

Stupid,

now,

I was.

Elastic stretches less

the more it’s overused.

Hence The Coldness

It’s nice to know

you don’t consider me

as worth the grief

of clicking on ‘reply’

and typing

N

then O.

Fear In Flight, God

a poem in two forms

1.

While driving home, this winter night,

I saw the orange greenhouse light

illuminate the sky.

The telly says, in Pakistan,

a hijacked plane, the bastards gone,

they killed a two–day groom.

An airport near, another crash,

a cargo plane, the pilot’s dash–

ing self–belief, now dead.

A glass of wine, the need for sleep,

this cyclic time, disturbed relief,

so naturally I dream...

2.

I’m drinking Rosé,

the colour of inhuman blood,

watching.

From night–time winter nurseries

cylinders of bright orange light

rise to the lowering cloud,

and spread like petals,

dying.

Hijackers

murder a bridegroom

for sight.

Elsewhere,

the heat is so extreme

that shocked birds

flying far above flames

ignite,

falling as shells,

incrementing death.

They think

to reduce their nation’s pain

by adding to it.

This is a time of cyclic myth

of winter solstice,

of Y2K,

of Christian birth.

Today’s God consumes.

Thoughts On Odes To Nightingales

So what is this nightingale

of which the old poets sing?

I drive to country dykes, to dust,

and hear a throat of motorway.

I climb a Munro hill, by rail,

and hear the tourist café chat.

I dive the barrier reef’s remains

and hear an abstract diesel chant.

Those poets,

they blaze their praise

of this bird I’ve not heard.

I think, you know, the nightingale’s an allergy

to dance, or punk, or what the poet hates,

the one that he or she desires,

appreciates.

So next you find an ode

to a nightingale’s airy delight,

make your thoughts Sir Oswald Osbourne

biting the head off a chicken that night.

the three monks

the only mountains in England

apart from those hills in the north

called mountains by fixing the rules

are the three monks

tall the way children see gods

shadow on all the flat Cambridgeshire

the remains of some prehistoric volcano

tan brown rock absorbing sun shining on vertical

up and fractal bare to the very top

where each peak rounds inward

a colony of hard green pine

the fringe on the heads of the pious

these three stalwarts surround

the fussy little town of Tull

on the March to Sleaford road

flat and straight across the fens

up and down and winding round

flat and fenland straight again

and why do you not know these monks

natural cathedrals of geology

dominating the tower of God–love Ely

military deceit maps the monks as meres

see the mars of shocked German bombers

and that pair of nuclear B–52s

there’s talk of some visual disguise

you’ll glance to see unfocused air

only wise eyes will comprehend

Neil Armstrong Is My Explorer Of The Millennium

He did much more

than simply explore

someone else’s home.

His shoulders stand

so we might land

on some dusty lunar shore.

Tobacco’s Such A Treat

If barons never bribe,

authorities are pure,

then why deny research,

why ban the brightest cure?

Chorus:

Tobacco’s such a treat

and dope is danger grass,

so says the law’s conceit:

for parliament’s an arse!

Some victims die of drugs

too strong, or full of crap;

when licensing applies

inspectors slap that rap.

Chorus:

Tobacco’s such a treat

and dope is danger grass,

so says the law’s conceit.

The government’s an arse!

Addictive drugs are banned,

which makes the barons rich.

The baccy tax is high,

the government is rich.

Chorus:

Tobacco’s such a treat

and dope is danger grass,

so says the law’s conceit:

the minister’s an arse!

A uniform is forced

so kids hate that, not school;

as prohibition laws

conceal the true misrule.

Chorus:

Tobacco’s such a treat

and dope is danger grass,

so says the law. Repeat:

yes, parliament’s an arse!

The government’s an arse!

The minister’s an arse!

The Queen Of Santa Fe

My memories are slippery and sharp,

and coloured by the heat of her,

adventurous and sweet.

Three months ago, I met the Queen of Santa Fe,

her hair as red and long as twenty seven years.

She caught my English words,

her throne and duty may have been this city in the dust,

but she’d never left her Isis home,

a council youth, a river bank,

a teacher with the petulance to force a lifetime long–haired girl

to cut her pride, to mark the drought of ’76.

She heard my English words

and spoke, exuberant,

compleat of drink and desert glow,

she spread her history.

She kept my English words,

and dreamt her night in Oxfordshire,

as snow caressed the foreign lands

where she will ride forever.

Sharp

I saw disease kill my mother slowly,

eating her movement.

No matter how much the death expected,

shock stains the grief.

It made me silly stupid:

I brewed a cup of coffee

and put it in the fridge.

Those around can care resolve.

Even my high tail cat observed

and fussed me her affection.

Here.

I know your pain.

Let me care.

old man Keats

i’m walking these empty lands

i’m old slow and graceless

the air’s bracing a lonely cold

i’m enthralled by recollection

we here such love

so young

i lost limp onto war

black red military battle

the stench of dogma

i’m too slow

they execute could–be spies

dying surely waits for me

if i’m to die violent

i’ll sneer the killers

i’ll be all they can’t

i shelter ruins

i lay my pack unpacked

groundsheet peasent food water

‘hours of idleness’

the battle flows turbulent

unpredictable waves conflict

the blood wash nears ebbs nears

those trained to die do quickly

survivors dance the killing ballet

turning luck burns their victory

a squad and sergeant tumble me accidental

glance aghast at my civil taunt

one lad speaks a runner runs

and returns a captain rides up

like the emperor he used to be

sad laughter the squad is guard

the battle sprints

the others swarm

confrontation

but a man shouts ‘old man Keats’

shock stop and hardly believe

both swarms curse and tension guard

sod the lot of them

when we were here

wilderness lovers

we were a better bang

even though i’m dead

i’m not allowed to die

but soon i will run the dark road

return to you

A Bicycle Criticises Concorde For Not Observing Butterflies

Within a fiction,

set in Samurai Japan,

there are a hundred men,

on a beach, rows, dead.

They were betrayed, not by their leader,

who let an enemy ooze behind lines,

not by their pointless simple honour;

no, they were betrayed by their author.

“So what?”, you might say,

“they’re only characters in a cheap novel”,

“if that”, you might add,

“hardly worth their sentence.”

But had any one of them,

dead to sharp that moment’s plot,

lived beyond their author’s laziness;

they could be: what?

Perhaps these non–born,

having snatched creation

for such a callous blink,

deserved their self–assassination;

they could have chosen a better book.

The film was, of course, successful.

chase chase

a real smile presented me

a gleaming dish of crumble

speckled with berry–red and moist

something to very much like

i take the first mouthful

a rush of flavour fruit

then a tooth is broke on stone

emotion like fingers in boiling

many men relish

chase chase

but i detes

6.6.6

20.0d chase chase

A Chapbook of poetry from Dylan Harris

20.0d 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