Wolf Tongue (7 page)

1                                                                                  

Far cliff Babylon, your natty dread future is a dole card

stamped with asteroids exploding

across the city of my

birth.

Putty children,

crassly aware.

I am 16.

I am a Tory. My

vision of the future represents

no people.

Celeriac priesthood offers up my rifle to the sky.

2                                                                        

Tear the carbon paper of your soul. Virtue

lacking wit cries on the edge

of minefields.

Agents want me to yield. When

I see the Sex Pistols in my dreams I

roll into the garden of a small

nightmare,

looking for holidays in the

sun.

No fun.

My simple body is

a complicated asteroid,

torn

from her

skin.

My life is the size of a

pin.

I have no people.

They represent me.

When we go my separate ways

the colours are dark.

No more apartheid.

3                                                          

Hearts like aubergines

cancelled from the garden.

Bint glove,

suck the rivets from

my cymbal,

smoke

vermilion gas. Feel

the city like a river, its

future not written in

words.

Language is a steady stick.

But people are

colour conscious. Their

heroes are red and their traitors

yellow,

Dan Smith fruit skin.

I have cancelled everything and now I am free to choose.

4                                                                          

I have died every day since I gave up poetry.

Dangerous condescending humans lapped it up.

They stuck their tongues into the gravy and

licked the plate.

Heroism learns to be a stranger

with odd shoes,

too late to use.

Combine your heart with fantasies

of power.

Copulate with the dynamoes inside this

red shirt.

Armband sex.

Helmets erect their tower.

Men train boys.

Fascist tarts obey.

5                                                                         

Exaggeration is a gift that strays, towards

the minor forest of her mind.

Pineal furtherance smokes, like

a blues clarinet

in water.

She is my only daughter,

torn from her skin.

I would not let her in. I

discovered my ability as

a father

snapped at the wrist.

I ate my fist.

The doubts are bicycle in the

hospital door.

We sucked the floor.

6                                                                            

The small belief is arrogant, how sick people

move. Hit my bruised runways,

on a council grant.

We collapse in domestic chaos.

Three minute punch ups are commonplace.

My children can

never pay back the thrashings

bashings & lashings.

I represent no people. Not even

myself.

Small,

crawling piety, you deserve

many bombs

&

guns.

I ate your Christian fish.

It made me sick.

Division is your prayer.

1978

rude unwelcome guest

luckless wind

at family’s four doors

nothing fever    eyes wear

solid fern

narrow compass

abjuring life

treason to my instruments

of you      taken

beamed

invisibled    counterfeit

midnight stealer

quiet roofs     pigeons croop

sponge boots caress

aching sills

stare at rough slot

magnets on the heart

aery chambers   lift

handsome filings

from dust to a star

solid route    distinct choice

years upright to earth

elements

world streets   erupted fuses

smash at old photographics

rushing memorials

heaving thickly   
iron tough

& curled

drowning love’s boat

Russian heart gondola

same hull punctures

deadly violent reefs

fire & ice    teach

beginnings tough

to believe

London shrubs & buds

neat borders

casual solace

explode in nothingness

no comfort     poison

coal with o’erblowing quench’d

vapour forth     flamed

shut & digested to mucus

in swan’s belly

fish of sky

hot masculine flame

driven by sleek leathered

foreign chauffeur whose

visor snaps & gleams

suck in air     over liquid paths

route marked     unblotted

black grouse feathered lyre

whisper to your soul

Newcastle’s kindest

harshest burr

melt & make no noise

hands to miss

bunched on a driving wheel

obliquely track a journey

vowed to this trench

sudden anchorites

dust without & stink within

hearth mate    joyous rise

if so I believed

freedom is a current choice

Hartfell grasses harp & sing

discoverer

meet the cavernous mole

shrewdly converse

when timbers fall

thick peat stampings

swift & pure invasion

driven by glade music

total capture   invisibled

veined in truth    no captive

sun & moon also particles

seduced by gorgeous charts

attend your fresh horizon

servants of such final need

old as this century is

polish felspar at Sparty Lea

burr the wind with Tyneside songs

skin mixie rabbit from ferret’s jaws

melt & make no noise

bunch your hands & clap my head

invisibled by a thief at night

stolen from sleep you stole from your family

melt & make no noise

ruthless masters did not poison you

you opened doors saluting their children

proud to chauffeur rich men’s sons

drugged by work you wouldn’t rest

melt & make no noise

dominoes laugh in the sun at night

ash drifts down & coats the dogs

fired upwards in the art of flight

melt & make no noise

lapwing lapwing green or grey

singing the smell of earth

sand mingled with blood of lies

melt & make no noise

no requiem no hymn no journey song

stopping to drink from a broken stream

ghosts of miners on the fell

shadowy poachers armed with snares

melt & make no noise

stern with children who grew up wrong

crossing your path when I crossed the Tyne

independence is a wolf that slays

melt & make no noise

follow your eyes to the source of the Allen

follow your hands inside intricate car engines

follow your speech to a wheel that cracks

follow your body to the ash in my skull

melt & make no noise

suck in fire from four windows

blasted kitchen with flaming breath

bear silence which your leaving makes

melt & make no noise

curlew chatter

crescent beaks

ragged wings swoop

snipe song

            long way from Kent

            to your rough ash slot

            which pours

            fills this skull

schooled in grind

taught with pennies

tall on earth

golden man

not fascist Aryan strength

dangerous claptrap

              Allendale rosehip

              whose fruit blood dries

              lichen is armour

               against these sores

we learned stones flowers fish birds

beasts

streams of fact

beck fells

whose terror

waited for my walk

you spoke

punched

              logs flared

sank

         we disagreed

furious

obstinate poles

iron words

fire words

survival language

tears will not

people will

not conniving

emotions will

not fences &

gates will not

bought flowers

pretty cards will

not

callous disregard

will not

               no buying back

               no second chance

               no guarantee

               no trial period

               no refund

trough gathered

pig faces

falcon glances

magpies

stealing shirts

pawning hair

pasting pride

               I want his braces

               shining sleevebands

               greedy bastards

               how much

remember solid tongue

no fuss mouths shut

tight against

light

leave to discretion

who has it but

the but the

but the

but the

dead

do not paint skies at Sparty Lea

do not bring rain to Martin’s Haydon Bridge

ignore sun’s invitation at Sipton Shield

stand by the Allen at Dirt Pot waiting for trout

                  watch the rats

                  kneeling

                  spit on priest

                  & dud employer

                  with his sent wreath

don’t take sides

nothing left

nothing’s right

you cannot buy

you must realise

you cannot retrieve

remember this

                   you can’t buy

                   no change

                   you can’t retrieve

hare in a gin

you can’t release

snipe in a trap

you can’t persuade

his heart any more

with toys

1975–1979

1
. Orphan consorts & vipers under glass. Hair

       wrapped in knots, secret purple liquid

in her circus fingers. Good morning day

         is love for you at work.

            Electric

          envelopes.

           We flame upward

          in a dream of flight.

                Gash lips, depot

          Venus sinks, sucks, turns

                     her secret

              to scrawl erotica. Blind

              men crawl. White

        sticks click, venom. Walking

     men see too many politics. Commons

            pin-time. Shredding machines

                 hot with use. Dogs

      shit on the earth & bark.
2
. I love you

my friendly little wayward trout of Lambeth Walk.

             Persephone is a gas that kills.

                    Trysted husbandry rots.

           Acid bullion fans each window

                     from the poisoned centre, we bend

                                   will

                     to its taste.

3
.
She syttes upon a Rocke,

   
She bends before hys Speere:

   
She ryses from the Shocke,

   
Wieldynge her owne yn Ayre
. Right. season fytte

                 self ends touching. Blue bliss banshee

             arrow death. Lette my Loverde fitte

             itself a knot

                    of snakes, scorpion burning

        million sand eyes. Uncouth brute. Stinking yob.

                        Collared neckblood, finger shit,

             duff born bastard, entrance wrong way.

       Mercy is Xtian

no mercy no molotov me. No bash

                         but kiss –

               not foot. Your little games

               secret. Pretty shirt

                        joy

                         
shared not
.
4
. Patchy dark

overtakes the bloody mistress of his pleasant ayre.

    Blood whose with my waters fat flow thick. sonke

       in bloode, neck charts, grim Juga:

             burn pansies, parsley vlix, pick-your-mother’s-

eyes-out, purging flax. Rip chicken legs (rhode island sussex)

      out of it. Pisspoor jackdaws bark

          long legged gnawed by filthy cats

               & stinking canine flesh.

                          Butchers

            all I see. Flesh hanging

            off the bone & hooks. Burning

                       books. Taj Mahals

            of muttshit, people

        eating anthrax virus. Horned

            fuckdust plugs their eyes.

             burn yr halles of merriement – burst

                   yr miskynettes.

             Sack the scallywag who brought me to this

                     fucking awful place.

5
.  Elated surgeon, second honeymoon ragged to ribbons

           by freedom Belfast housefrau

             obsessed with her / nothing has moved /

engages the characters/ stunningly/ mummers

       aiming red guns, lonely passionated

    gum blood, fire, spitting house flame,

         cold bodies in what happens next is

a victorian collection of demesning smut.
6
. to find

    out 10 years younger why this happened

        her hair streaked with splendidly bracing

experience.    Precious few female

            erotic forces can knot

      such deadly nightshade

          Merk Plantes in her

                         fingers

                   for so many

          lovers to

                     suck

             the poison down.

I to the Qwood muste goe because there is more cash in It.

                      Arts Councils

    I suck dry. Blacklists

            stuff my mind. Col B’s name

(JOHNSTON) writ large in letters scraped

        on Whitley Bay’s famous golden shore.

                  Where waves roar

           inside the cardboard heads

                   of grey overcoats

            with writs to serve. We swerve.

7
. Drybblet joie maie find a beme of bacon rind, inshore, when

           it he she they come

      home (where violence is & was). Yem is where

          people die, mindblood

              draining into hearths from hearts. Slaver

         drips from every pore

            you see. It

will cost nothing. You will be refunded

        for this so-called truth.

     Your house will have kernels of gold

        laid upon its roof.

  Piss on it & pull

         nettle roots from your plan. Gourmets

      in evasion spick petal dust up

              fucked kind like.

none wife go/sweater pretty shirt/thread politics/explain/apologise

      burned relief I come from bulls, creased amoeba

   hit the fan of all delights, cataract, blind pastry

            ducks, sways, seeks

      ENHELE ME/CAST NO SHRED.
8
. Come far in years.

  Sample hard mania lies. Sample rubber policies.

     Swallow stiff wrists embalmed with sable tongue.

Learn gristle kidda. Learn scumbag frown.

                       Learn slap on head

or you’ll stay in for life.    belted arse, slave tactics.

  Plit quote love poems to reach jowhere:
8
. meant split love’s

            mayakovsky boat bolshevik bad translation

                         GONDOLA on vodka Neva

        future/wrist/stick plimsoll geometry

            of the hardened spirit

                 bent back to sky

        canvas slashed,

                 anonymous goths,

        heavy european rain (rulers, federalists, kings).

   Tsar me.      King me. Secretariat my joys. Bureaucratise

                 loves, hair. Bind this

           muscled canopy & cook it dry. Scrape

                    gravy from heart’s disease, curious

                               disquiet of the soul.

         Bondage is a SCORE OF STEDES

  to Ride Me from this Arid Plain. Get

            whatte I know is nowt, sunny Jims

                   so filled with valley

                         rain. HARTE

       SYKE PEYNE, middle english sense

                  I know tonight or any day

        of dreams that clash. Fash not

   ligamentisity, fresh language, pulsing

                velour cravats, fannies

       of famous women,

    doggie carrots, eyes swivelled

          in a mirror of their own reflections. We

      learn page one, page three, banner trash.

           Queen me! Ha! Princess pearl toes

  120-point princess Cinderella, what bedbait. Kiss

              then. Bend under rain.
9
. Last buds

     come first. Come back. Lions

           are their fear. Maned kayaks

               in the rough of life. Thorn

                    roots – I have their

              word for it – pull

                              DOWN.

Snap   Snap   Snap.   Trench is life. Rut is go.

    Blending was post-Swedenborgian, cherries
10
.

         fell from the cake house. We learned

      many. Sheen peeled. Lacquer lost its somehow

                   in the gale. Too small

           a guyfte the londe & sea, you spread

        a shield whose argent. Whose argent

                  burned up sight sound.

       I was Aella’s slave. I ate words.

     I was Aella’s wife. No holpe came quick.

        I was Aella’s labourer. He broke my axe.

          I was Aella’s lover. We made amends.

   I was Aella’s universe. We settled for sandgrains.

        O save me from her thou illustrious sage

   is a herbal telegram whose text (nicked from Dante)

                     enchained

           moi, would not keep us from the flames

                          of Dis.

                   Hear this.

                                       Your

    secret
11
. games

    tempt to wrong beds. Drawn by conduits

              of red hair

        up

          sleek

  gunbarrels in the rain, gutter

                     stealth, I

      rode gondola’s nightshirt waves & sank

  a shaft to hilt

           in molten sand. Betraste, coptic,

     this is the network, ancient brother

   in arms, hand

                      by loin.

            I seek your groin

             with a stone.

12
. CELMONDE is a lover I would skin sheets to seek.

              Pleats in her many-furrowed glebe

                      as she speaks queen’s speech

                      : POTTE OUT POTTE OUT

        melt these plastic bicycle

                       tinerary’s dark stream

                 clash events:

              marrows, young rhubarb

     stainless bint is number 10

  no glove on cattle grid this horn whose hooves

              spark furnace night. We eat

                     red snow. F1 hybrid

            St John Stevas grin at Bexley Ted

hair on hair shirt before cameras, Bede’s sandals

                   Cuthbert’s

            cannot walk this land. His

                  hut

               is cut

                     by hand

    while private practice thrives. Weep in drizzle

              of raincoat doubled majorities. THE MAGGIES

                  BEATS. THE MAGGIE BOEAST.

                             
The Maggie Beast

        fire amalgam, mercury poisoning

              tubed cadmium, delta mouth

          mudlips on stroking maps

       Albion, a new geography

          Albion, to be repealed.

                         IAM NO SHIELD.

                        Open the door.

                           Rented skies.

                             Colour bleeds to horizon’s rim.

                                     Quest is claw.

(coda)

                       Betelgeuse. My central star.

                 Justice as geography of the soul.

                        Opportunity is darkness. I am

                      
16
. I am

            a Tory. I am sixteen

                      different stories.

                        The moon (Beulah) walks Up.

               She is white torch maiden

        protected by blue police of the night.

                        No frights

              distress her

                      glowing

                      garment hem.

       Plexistars,

          windows of the mind, cloches

       thrown up reflecting

          dawn, so blind

             each pace towards the door.

         Sunken breath,

            saucer eyes, no

      surprise. Up for sale

         we go, driven into

                 roots

             by blood & silence

      of our lives.

1978–79

this state of the nation bulletin for J.H. Prynne