17


I sat with Blake's Thel                       which messed up my decasyllabics
& recalled a gentle modal grope on E               [Dorian]
                  I reversed through the gloaming with Zoot Sims' Doggin Around
               redolent of the last local outdoor festivities
        a rusty Christmas tree flat on its back in the lay-by
          her beds were unpicked brillo pads of twisted thorn & briar:
            a waist-high summer wilderness of green curved air & wire
                               the pillow slips she stitched by hand throughout the month of May
                               now hanging    in the Lowestoft branch   of   Help the Aged
               Berlioz said that for the revolution you needed
               four brass bands: one to cover every exit from the church
                                                                                 when you finally get the boat back into the water
                                                                the wood should swell & close the gaps below the waterline
                                                                   but this will only happen if you believe that it will
it's easy to see    you're still feeling muff-
                               led               the old romantic jammer
                with a bent & tarnished tube            full of ancient pains & trains
                               a Yamaha Silent Brass System    stuffed up your bell end
                               partly        but not exclusively
                               for the sake of the neighbours
one lead from the trumpet-mute                           to the black box on my belt
the other flows from the holes in my head to your box babe
you might play out your heart for years with no-one listening
                sitting with a lapful of warm chips in a dirty Vauxhall
               cheap malt vinegar two fingers deep in the see-through bag
remember when you reached beneath and cupped it in your hand?
               who would have thought that guitar bridges could span such distance?
                               now I know that Blake's fourteener wasn't just a conker
     I can listen to  Tom Waits' Orphans                       go with the flow without counting
but dreams still scrape my stubble                  the harsh translation issues
stir with a big knob of mascarpone & grated nuts
woke me in simmered sweat at three in the frozen morning
     also known as physics
     Régine Crespin sings    the six summer songs by Berlioz
     hours or years before we all become the ghosts of roses
     tell me where you want to go         the unknown island
     it's a turning off the A14
     some charts are just a broad expanse of blue with meticulous legends
          depths are in metres & all bearings are true
               the Krewe of Endymion wasted hours
                       throwing sugar at the folk of New Orleans
                               before ducking out of the rain for soul food:
                                    a piece written    over  the  chord  changes   of another
                                    is still a contrafact         many of the networks evolved
                                    in the brain are late music the colour of dark red wine





Norfolk         January 2007