We went into the Valley of Elah
looking for victory and reasons to carry on ,
when we got there those reasons had gone ;
they’d quietly slipped away
leaving us with nothing more to say ;
when we got back
we didn’t recognise ourselves ,
we looked at our faces in the mirror
that only showed someone else ;
all our words too had their meaning changed
for something that we couldn’t understand ,
and we who were born here
became strangers in our own land .
Each one individual
different from the last,
still spiral in shape
and glowing with colour,
but different
as if each seperate one
has its own vocation,
growing and glowing to
the peak of its form,
or jumping lemming-like
to an inevitable end,
before it has lived
nipped in the bud and then
crushed underfoot again and again;
Then the rebel piece
causes maximum disturbance
sticks to its creator
for another lease of life,
then lies on its back
backlash and then,
the tool hits the jump
and me jumping back,
to panic for a handle,
yet another false mistake
while the rebel fits to
its own metallic waste,
and I know he’s gone for good;
I wonder should I tell them
the science of their lives?
their ductile strength,
their malleability
or how less longer
they live in the heat,
or should I keep them
young in my own imagination,
where boredom is
the furthest place away?
(Martin Nicholson has asserted his authorial rights in this work)
Giant,
glossy,
glamorous
coffee table magazines,
with those portraiture pictures
that capture those
” just so ” glances,
contemplative
meditative,
with that pristine air
of purposeful confidence,
of a knowing what lies ahead;
and the apparel just so,
the complexion just so,
hair,eyes,nose and teeth just so,
of shop window dummies
playing at being us.
It’s gonna be a Heckler & Koch morning,
but i don’t know that yet as I get up at 4.30 a.m.
to use the toilet;
The hall light’s on and I notice the front door’s open,
wide open but I need the toilet first;
Minutes later appropriately attired I almost somnambulate
toward the wide open front door and the faces –
flecks of colour- in black black black camouflage;
It’s a Heckler & Koch morning alright,
Their voices instruct me to come out,
there they are strapped onto body armour,
their Heckler & Kochs:
who am I, who lives there,how many flats ?
I make it casual even conversational given the situation,
getting up and ready for work,
they say I should get back to my flat,
I do;
Time doesn’t flow,not much really,
I’m getting my breakfast ready,
they knock diplomatically on my flat door;
I cajole one of them to come in –
the rest of the squad is jackbooting
up to the other flats and I’m chatting and
giving what useful info I can ;
The scenario continues for about half an hour,
I hear them smashing the door to the empty flat next to mine:
It’s a Heckler & Koch morning in downtown Wakefield,
and I’ve had my breakfast and I depart for
my Heckler & Koch day at my Heckler & Koch job ,
the main entrance door to these 5 pokey apartments –
pied-a-terres-but without any metropolitan pretensions-
remains wide open until I close it respectfully behind me
and step out into the Heckler & Koch morning.
Author’s Footnote:
At around 4.30 a.m. Monday 26 November a heavily armed Police SWAT unit showed up at the address where I live; it turned out they had the wrong address.
Mythic streets evaporate at dawn,
leaving only complacent memory
to recall imperfectly those scraps
and oddities of ephemera that
defy rational explanation;
a pristine franked letter posted
in Huddersfield 1841;several ornate
glass marbles that were a birthday
present to some Rhineland princeling;
the signature of Thomas Alva Edison
on a page awkwardly torn from a
Hotel register omitting its name,
the building itself demolished long ago;
a skeletal frame of a Penny Farthing
half buried amid the inconsequential
detritus of the communal refuse tip;
a yellowing poster of a once well known
brand of cough syrup,the discernible lines
of a now defunct city tram route;
And somewhere,the presence of an
inveterate aesthete and poet of civic
renown struggling to evoke a nostalgia
amongst those who had not read Borges
nor knew of his blindness.
Rotor blades are swiping the sky,
bronze and orange paint their
surreal stripes across the horizon;
throbbing humming whirring,
meld into cacophany;
Rotor blades are swiping the sky,
chattering clattering hammering,
smacking concrete jarring the senses;
squatting crouching striding toward
the doors yawning open,
huddled in shock huddled in awe;
the bronze and orange painting
their surreal stripes brighter than before;
seconds seconds minutes pass,
losing time time gone;
throbbing bursting choking rotors
rev their roar,
doors slamming slamming
shut as coffin lids,
whisps, plumes and clouds
of smoke curl and choke
scrawl their epitaph
over the city;
bronze and orange continue to bleed,
rotor blades are swiping the sky.
There is in the photograph you’re holding
someone taking a snapshot
of someone else posing
for someone else’s camera –
who’s being photographed by somebody
taking a picture to post online,
and in turn is getting snapped
by others taking shots
who without knowing it
are clicked for posterity
forever pointing lenses at
others in others’ images
that reduce to a single dot on the horizon,
which upon magnification
turns out to be you,
holding a photograph
of someone taking a snapshot..
He saw you there,
there in the magazine
there on stage
there on the screen;
pristine,immaculate
in black
in white,
you filled his eyes
sparkled and dazzled them;
Pristine,immaculate
your form,
your shape
so casually,lazily
represented as if
painted by Michaelangelo
in an Age of beauty and mystery;
Pristine,
immaculate
he sees you now
leaving your fancy apartment
on the Boulevard Saint Michel,
you are alone,
you are pristine,
you are immaculate;
he reaches for
the syringe
and
steps out to meet you..
Those words that used to mean so much
more back then,
mean a whole lot less than that now;
Keep on repeating repeating the
words that you borrow and steal,
keep repeating that till
you’ve convinced yourself
that you asked and paid for
every thought stolen
every truth borrowed;
Quote plagiarise paraphrase,
every aphorism saying axiom
allegory parable metaphor analogy;
Warp it into something something
then something else again,
build a tower a babylon of words,
watch them rise and
stadiums echo with adulation
for their orator;
Your words that used to mean so much
more back then,
mean a whole lot less than that now.
Light and dark and
light and dark and then..
The long road into the nowhere
of a faraway never-seen;
Wind and rain and
wind and rain and then,
rain again,
washing the colours from
fading yester-me yester-you
yesterdays’ messages never sent,
telephones never answered,
doors that remain shut
at this and all hours,
no-one stirs inside the
Light and dark and
light and dark and then..
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