Tag Archives: contemporary society

Metropolis

3 Replies

Stark geometric lines
intersecting clean marble
and steel;
horizonless concourses
deserted entrance halls,
empty corridors
vacant escalators
ascending,
descending
in relentless
progression;
Walls hyphenated
with reminders
to purchase,
to consume
bellowing mutely
into the void;
shimmering platform mirrors,
clipped automated announcements,
data screens streaming
their silent prophecies;
Inexorable arrivals
whooshing
and rumbling,
debouching into
the gleaming Now
of a glass-towered
morning amid its
awakening rage
there on
the bench
face down,
his skin again
punctured,
no-one.

Alien Nation : Alienation

2 Replies

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 .

Metal Shavings

2 Replies

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)

Coffee Table

2 Replies

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.

Heckler & Koch

1 Reply

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.

 

Ciudad desierta ( Deserted City )

8 Replies

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.

Extraction Point

2 Replies

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.

 

I, Camera

2 Replies

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..

Stalker

3 Replies

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..

More Than Words

3 Replies

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.