Under closed eyes
“The self is not enough but that’s all we’ve got”
Said a voice in my dream.
I felt a small glow within.
Perhaps some light had already opened
the tick of a tiny flower
split from its negative
in darkness
under closed eyes.
(More) Micropoems
Midnight Bowling-green.
The Ghost
was frightened.
Dodged a flying phonebook
she boxed my ears.
Am on parole.
Chapter ten
I leapt up
cold and horrified.
Karma-phobia.
Who wants to go on waking
into boneyards of the soul?
Self space
Void-full.
Empty as everything.
In this mirror
my eyes
Like the end of a tunnel.
Kiss your chains
A commotion in my heart
as I moved into the room
taking a straight line
though sideways seemed preferable.
Sometimes you have to make do.
She was ready.
And afterwards she said
“Kiss your chains
before you go back home.
Kiss them, baby!
OK. Stand up now.”
I really wanted a cuddle
But sometimes you have to make do.
(1977)
A glow of pictures
A distinction examined
grows flat.
So perhaps strive for the familiar
yet misunderstood
to grasp some beginning
beyond thoughtless chatter.
Then later
as that bloated moon hangs silent
A glow of pictures
might blossom in the sleeping head.
Living things move
A word for movement
by living things
when we walk along the street
called “locomotion.”
For parts released into action
or confined within their orbits
in blurs of gesture
like a “do this”
trapping us when we move
as living things.
There is another distinction:
muscles themselves
going into contraction
which causes motion
so we move in reaction
that shows as our distinctive action
shaping the locomotion.
This word for movement
by living things.
Lidia bathing
Humming in a private tone-language
Lidia felt her own enormity
she was decently soaping a big toe
having few feelings on the subject
It wasn’t entirely her fault after all
in any case she was a sensible girl
who always looked forward to tomorrow.
That it never came made no difference
and would only have spoiled things.
She made some token splashes
absorbed in the reaction of water
if she chose to overlook her failings
it was mainly due to their unimportance.
Normality had begun its suffocation long ago
so she lay back in the soft foam
as sleep ran over her in tiny electric snakes
gliding from another realm.
There was just time for a snooze
before Tea at five.
Monster
“Hello my dear,” said the Monster
“Who’s this?” she cried.
“Come to me, little one.”
“Hey! That’s creepy.”
“You can be a princess in the Underworld.”
“Ugh! Let me go!
“Love’s more pure beyond the grave.”
Those hands touch
round her throat.
Now here I was
with a pocketknife
large plastic torch
(and holy water too).
Sat fearful
waiting in the crypt.
Outside thick fog conceals
faint murmured groans.
Some
thing moves closer
all the time.
Get ready!
(It’s nearly Midnight.)
Vampire Poem
Pale Mistress
Awake in velvet
Blackness framed her nails.
Then I fought desire
but
captured by those eyes
lost force.
Resistance gone
she drew me down
toward both hungy lips
and sharp
white
teeth.
“Dear Lord, preserve my Soul…”
I grasped at words
which fled away.
They drifted through dead air
like falling snow.
Too late for escape
I noticed sounds
as if small flapping wings
evaded sight.
Or strange melodies
were somehow
produced
by tiny hands
on glinting stabs
across piano
keyboards.
While feeling coldness
stretching wide as night
over giant trees.
“O life, where is thy warmth?”
Beside me now
she lay
content.
Yet said:
“I feel the wounds of dead souls in my head
and hear their words.”
I trembled at the sound of that voice
rising
from a void
without end.
Vampire Poem
The Summons
Hear our call.
Come journey
into Darkness
where the dead are about
and live ones are near.
Sense the fury of Spirits
in caverns of extinction.
Feel watched
by unspeakable eyes.
Let us stalk
ruthless and empty
through echoing passions
stronger than ourselves.
(1978)
Avebury
Out from the heated
spoken word beyond
this mind
a world by some
sound of distance strained
opening its furrow
across the blood
pulling toward unknown
generations thrown among
ages lost or
a pulse of
struggle forgotten
through winds of extinction
now inert as winter on
the earth
that untidy bloom of lives
dreamed in an endless web
before we knew
a smell of roots which
push their echoing nerves
to search and blunder
beneath such ground
in a strangeness of fields
I have not seen.
Potent with Fate
the spell of Chaos.
Ken Hallett Blog 