lady lay in primary colours
for Cecil Helman

detente an entomological alphabet
happier times the wrong number you would
go and die j'accuse stranger
if anything than the first
a book's fate
is the reading public multi-textured
as an abattoir swinging fireworks through the decades
if you were there you have forgotten 'mad woman'
the little marks that make everything alright
like faking communism
a tribute perhaps
but I wish I'd never read
and could have understood instead
stopping what might have happened to smell the roses birds and beats
sick but not that sick I didn't know 'mark the above'
or thought I knew I hoped I hoped differently help you
help yourself the marmalade my friend is all on me





central location

every time you wake up
the drift of anchors turning music
'when you said we'd meet for coffee what did you expect?'
pills of gulls tuning in the mouth of the gallery
a year goes by
as bells slum it in American terminals
spinning records for the deaf when you thought
it was profound what were you thinking
the bottle-bank tanked with yesterday's conversation
'I remember you well' your face
still as a monkey's at the glass 'too much green tea'

I prescribe a walk by the harbour to imagine
trains pulling into Venice full as peaches
with miniature artworks
the bus every time
you travel 'I could paint you here
but you'd already be gone' style in one eye
green in the other parks open we could be anywhere





a few clods of water

germ or atomic warfare nostalgia
it is at once relevant in book form
there in 1966
but
mending fences
in the way dissidence is stylised

we meet beside the churchyard exchanging gifts
of rosemary flowers and third person narratives
'I could hear him talking quietly'

it is not made clear at this stage
crackling in the next room another army
has just lost a war in this case geography
the combination written along parallel lines
on page 7 of the Warsaw Concerto
an elision of complexities 'would you like a rose?'
'I would' worn nonchalantly on your lapel
that I was there too
I'm coming to the end of the page
the young man in picture one
ciphered by curious vocalisation 'nothing
to hear here' locating the site
in the mouth of the observer psychotropical lilies





slight return

the island beyond the table
you are gone and you job done
no one is
the moon feeding distance
beyond the lake a country where
the currency is matchsticks here
radio waves (modernised) tell you what you want
a house a bar the career on TV
selling chocolate crimes
a man is outside
your negotiable threshold making signs with
prosthetic limbs get out still moving
how did you know did you cause
the problem emblem of cat suits
eating economy burgers is this thinking?

my mind is on ice a circus trick
storing memories for the future
what's the use all stares are blank
spaces between galaxies don't taunt me
tomorrow I may have an extra hour for lunch
but what did I pay for today 'your gift for narrative
is astonishing' will you buy me will you
move me punching my painting in the ribs

I feel so tired that I'm floating out
yesterday was so yesterday it is
absent the message you didn't leave ink drying
try harder please June is confusing the drums don't work
oh auntie your night '96/'09 (hyperbole again)
have an ice-cream it could be agony





it's like London

but still I like it here
the pretty days 'get your baggage
and when you've got your baggage I'll meet you'

we'll just lay around Sunday
I'll take Monday off the murder mystery can wait
until evening
are you a professional?
there are so many people who ought not to be here
(if I blow up my work place tomorrow please remember
this is fiction out of context)

all of which is building up to say something
involving a desert island in snow you're right
I'm not sure
the perfect pleasure of enlightenment
is always somewhere over there
a picture cleaned up for future generations
full stop absent a method of sorts

for Rupert Loydell


© Nathan Thompson 2009