Wolf Tongue (4 page)

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Authors: Barry MacSweeney

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ODES

(1971–1978)

for Elaine

Flame Ode

(for Elaine)

Two hawks and a plover swoop

above as we run the

quiet

band.

Listen. The mountain spring is music

too.

(Clear swell

of

breath in

poems.)

We cluster in

the busy grass &

talk. Rise

up & live!

It is really distinct.

The feet are white boats. Hands are

unlocked keys of colour & shape. Love

me.      Feel me beside you

and within.

(Boats

in April rain

pools)

I break my chrysalis

& Rise!

Walk as a golden man.

Indigo robe her arm is wrapped within. Amber

the hair and eyes of this woman. See

them. There, the seal. Is

broken, open.

Shafts of gold in the pale afternoon.

Plover.

Lamb.

Moon goes like

a woman

through time

Un-

broken.

Time is a jagged mark upon the wrist. See

the child does not weep. Or

has any leaf upon his flaming

side.

He holds

what blood there is in

side an acorne-coppe.

Spiky yellow buds

between

his making fingers.

Bread.

Cyanide.

Peristalsis writhes a sudden knot &

hangs himself. His micro-

lunch burns.

The lamb in his horned

Calipers moves

afraid. He

cannot find.     O riff

of my pulse’s purple disk!

Sheen & gloss.

Snakes

in heaven too

Do writhe.

Influx of new crass mourning. Shrouds

draw off the velvet caress a hand

makes

within yr breast.

Is this a Thought-Robe? (See

her gem of mind is a macrocosm.) This

corresponds to something solid

& Bright. We’ll

attach our

selves

there

Yet.

She walks up. Stands in the air. It is raining

gently and we are transported by

urgency to stay.

You

are quiet & I am inside

breathing slowly.

ICI herbs

quiver

on the lawn. Come

back. My throat

is

heavy with empty

songs.

what would life be without Johann Boetticher

    or!

          C
LEFS DE LA
P
HILOSOPHIE
S
PAGYRIQUE

under the pines

of future death

        & Horbiger, owner

           of the leather circus, shades of Grosz!

hideous and enchanting Thulean neo-paganism

                          eternal ice of Peenemunde/

                          (Beulah walks

                          up

sleek beasts

in your equinoctial dreams.

           the song the song     the song of

           Thule, progenital

           echo of crass teal,    oh peach-

               tilted animal

                                   in the heart-park

      to whit

   a fried leaf of

     cyanide

                                   oaken saddle

                           of premature breath

               the Nine will be mine

          Land of the black goose.

          & tie strings together

                as the sky falls

 between the knees, fragrant

    lard-mouth. A planet in decision. But

                falls sunless towards

   the best uncle, Flapless Man. Sheets & Arrows

on his bracken ankles, terse cloth

            in his worn digital pie. Last week’s

Luddite, Tolpuddle broth of caps, Flapless

          leaks

                   & the sky (his odd wife)

              fails to strangle inclinations

                     between those sheeny

                       thighs. Flapless

            never comes.

Flop goes Flapless & the whole arterial mess

                  back by the gas with an

                          Irish supper. No doubt

                the last of all marchers

                   & out for the year.

        Nouveau Flapless in the garments of rich

        hunger, living on potatoes & nitro-glycerine.

             ‘and the warm weather is holding’

                        far back, whisky

            nailed the plate, he

kissed an Ace

                    On into

overmuch, pukey niblets

in the shadow of the magic mushroom

children held rooms for grief in the mild autumn

And why won’t he come, my mother in the pantry

flames shift

in the sky

working late in a crane

                            But, he did not, arrive, he

                            left

       & a crime reporter reviewed my poems, the

        last bud

with a quote from mike mcclure

                         the lion roared back

                   sleek beast

            flames melt

            factory gates

       the blackmailer treads over the instruments

                               of the poor shift

people have to eat

  Urals postmaster, this is your

dead child! Ecto-

lunch on the shore, spherical

& gorgeous.

                  tattle for

a leaf, butter in your eyes

as you fall.

                  a dream

of deltas in whose sunken shore

           his weightless sister

        drives her car

             of charity. au bord de la

pollisonne rouge, he struck

                       the platform.

        rainy cheeks of the driver on the

  train at Koblenz, Monday

    of the year, a

  Swiss descendant dream.

        But

  clank    another

             point to

    the maquis, altar

        in the offside, together

        by the feminine

                 time.

outside the violent plant.

watching the skater’s line

swell.

her name was Bonney and although she wasn’t registered

she bored a hole through his iron idiot heart

                   Blinking foam of nefertiti

                   singular & coral-inclined, lip

                   less & many loved, wheel

                   your spikeless machine

                   towards the sensitive plant

                   in a poem by Percy, away

                   from the violent garden:

                   Speak to the sepal nations

                   laid down with fathom

                   less bit

                   umen to follow

                   on into the newly

                   taken day

beaming Anaconda of parthian monumentalism your

votes gloss acidly these white stone derivations

I’m forever in excess to

      when sneeringly literal

                  to contours

suds abide

          vapour-crushed

borne lycanthropically

          by slippers

truck-hearted

       confluence

    of equally mad

        sources

      electrically

        bridled

       Tenderly those

crackling head-waters

           fray

    to porky

      mitts

   in blood

the sky & I widen, aching

    for the vulva

        clam.

death beholder

lynx shoulderblade tundra dart

in cold

brother sleep

all of that

   or not

   death reminder

    obituary cremation refusal placement

ganglia warfare in wood neck lace

   panto Plato revives

       death bewilder

       wild wolf eye

          sudden snake eye

    gut button

                  acid

       suds abide in lycanthropic

   fancy tollbridge Amersham

  death bereaver

logs fortify

        damn is dam

                     so Elma

can perpetuate his league of sighs

         death betrayer

         believer

     narcosis famine cat struck

                   extensions of the form

               poetry sleep death

O pusillanimous orb de la Brillo

fetch pseuds!

Agate

pimps my forest

virgin

cigarette,

spatial confluence

of stars.

Pulp & sunupness

your hay was my trial

in my mad brother’s

prole tick-tock.

Indulge such wagons-lit.

Juice cups

inside lipstick,

gamboge blue.

Pollen.

White

cone. 

Crepuscular phantoms energise manhood, soap.

Suds of jazz inebriate the mountain,

manners go. Fat city, lush

tandem for these northern dreams

conveying all there is to know

of bread.

Carbon.

Wolves

rise.

Beasts murmur

in lard.

Frig tits when they

lubricate

the starlet’s feathered

twat.

Belly.

Honey.

Bread.

Tough.

O pulchritudinous orb de la dish scourer,

bring suds!

Fan abolishment, tense grebelet,

overcooked in horny apple fat, muscadet.

Steaming

mind-jars kill

your

cock

song

Cream the city

Gristle piston

inside bone.

Amps

Clit.

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