I am not a man
except for this pint
except that I am the last
in Herne Bay.
Mini golf. A barking noise.
It’s never occurred to me.
I am for the Swayze
Just coming on the jukebox.
When you are trendy for a pint
God it’s so ironic we are here
my manners have slipped
dancing on my own
When you are the last
you will dig out oysters
and lob them at the rocks
like the birds
you will step over
a leaking postman
to scoff wafer cones
from the kiosks
you will catch
yourself mumbling
along the corridors
of the marine hotel at night
when you are mechanical
and will always face
the sea
what can you do?
was it you I was with?
paying £1.20 to eat these slugs
and getting pissed on the beach
Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Ruins of Dreamland
Dreamland burned down. The dreams of Dreamland burnt too. I tried explaining the penny arcade to my hunting pack. They snapped and they clinkered and one by one they died. Ranter and Ringwood, Bellman and True.
Radio rust over Dreamland, over. Shortwave static grows through the scaffold of the coaster tracks, propagates slowly in the evening tide. Echoes of the ghost train. Right well I served my master, said the voice.
One voice from the bunker. Female uninflected, smudged by atmospherics, generated by machines. Whiskey stained. Foxtrot and tango as sprung dancefloors into powder. Dreamland attracted over two million visitors a year.
Dreamland attracted me. As you will plainly hear, smudged by sunspots. In the public language of numbers, though this is not, shall we say, for public consumption. I spent many nights here as a young buck.
Perhaps fifty times larger than a man, Dreamland was potential. Its ruins lie all around us, in burnt out sierras, of dandelion, sorrel, jack-by-the-hedge. I tried explaining seaside architecture to a dead gull. From its bill whispered Kursaal, Washington, Hotel, Napoli.
Poaching the ruins for steel struts and coddling them for coaster rails. Dreamland was a controlled explosion. Dreamland was my delight. I tried to explain this to the numbers as they drifted over the sea and tangled in the scaffold. Dreamland burned down. Dreamland burned down. Dreamland burned down.
Radio rust over Dreamland, over. Shortwave static grows through the scaffold of the coaster tracks, propagates slowly in the evening tide. Echoes of the ghost train. Right well I served my master, said the voice.
One voice from the bunker. Female uninflected, smudged by atmospherics, generated by machines. Whiskey stained. Foxtrot and tango as sprung dancefloors into powder. Dreamland attracted over two million visitors a year.
Dreamland attracted me. As you will plainly hear, smudged by sunspots. In the public language of numbers, though this is not, shall we say, for public consumption. I spent many nights here as a young buck.
Perhaps fifty times larger than a man, Dreamland was potential. Its ruins lie all around us, in burnt out sierras, of dandelion, sorrel, jack-by-the-hedge. I tried explaining seaside architecture to a dead gull. From its bill whispered Kursaal, Washington, Hotel, Napoli.
Poaching the ruins for steel struts and coddling them for coaster rails. Dreamland was a controlled explosion. Dreamland was my delight. I tried to explain this to the numbers as they drifted over the sea and tangled in the scaffold. Dreamland burned down. Dreamland burned down. Dreamland burned down.
Friday, 29 January 2010
The Road to Passaic
Parts 1-4:
on the number 30 bus of the Inter-City Transportation Co.
anonymous tins of food wimpled softly
the ashes of the late world wimpled softly
the tarp wimpled softly
a set of tracks suddenly appeared and wimpled softly
like something trying to preserve heat
like the last host of christendom
like certain frescoes
a set of tracks appeared and wimpled softly
I pulled the buzzer-cord and got off
that ashen scabland wimpled softly
*
the sky a sensitive stain of sweat
the bridge an enormous photograph of wood and steel
the river an enormous movie film
in the glassy air of New Jersey
a good business in STONE, BITUMINOUS, SAND and CEMENT
Passaic seems full of “holes”, he said.
The boy didn’t answer.
*
I walked down a parking lot
that monumental parking lot
like a grieving mother with a lamp
all that existed were millions of grains of sand
trembling like ground-foxes in their cover,
like shoppers in the commissaries of hell
the future is “out of date” and “old fashioned”
such futures are found in grade B Utopian films
and a paperback called The Road by Cormac McCarthy
*
In those first years Robert Smithson was so rich in color. He sharpened a quill in the smokestacks and the 1968 Firebirds and the barrows heaped with shoddy so it would be possible to see how was made oceans, mountains, New Jersey peopled with realistic waxworks of raw meat. When he rose and turned to go back the tarp was lit from within. The ashes of the late world wimpled softly, like squid ink uncoiling.
on the number 30 bus of the Inter-City Transportation Co.
anonymous tins of food wimpled softly
the ashes of the late world wimpled softly
the tarp wimpled softly
a set of tracks suddenly appeared and wimpled softly
like something trying to preserve heat
like the last host of christendom
like certain frescoes
a set of tracks appeared and wimpled softly
I pulled the buzzer-cord and got off
that ashen scabland wimpled softly
*
the sky a sensitive stain of sweat
the bridge an enormous photograph of wood and steel
the river an enormous movie film
in the glassy air of New Jersey
a good business in STONE, BITUMINOUS, SAND and CEMENT
Passaic seems full of “holes”, he said.
The boy didn’t answer.
*
I walked down a parking lot
that monumental parking lot
like a grieving mother with a lamp
all that existed were millions of grains of sand
trembling like ground-foxes in their cover,
like shoppers in the commissaries of hell
the future is “out of date” and “old fashioned”
such futures are found in grade B Utopian films
and a paperback called The Road by Cormac McCarthy
*
In those first years Robert Smithson was so rich in color. He sharpened a quill in the smokestacks and the 1968 Firebirds and the barrows heaped with shoddy so it would be possible to see how was made oceans, mountains, New Jersey peopled with realistic waxworks of raw meat. When he rose and turned to go back the tarp was lit from within. The ashes of the late world wimpled softly, like squid ink uncoiling.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
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