> WORDS <

> POEMS + PROSE <

by



|| Robert Calvert ||

The WORDS section of the Calvert site is broken up in 4 parts:

Lyrics [parts 1-4]

Poems / Prose / Drama & Misc. [see below]

Unreleased poems

Performance pieces

this division is of course a vague one -
There are several cross-references between the texts in these different sections - like the poems
The Starfarer's Dispatch and The Clone's Poem that later on became the lyrics of Hawkwind's song
Spirit of the Age.
Calvert frequently used his poetry as song-lyrics and performance material - and vice versa...


Poems / lyrics & texts that appear as links are featured on separate illustrated pages -


POEMS

  Robert Calvert considered himself first and foremost as a poet - with or without sound/music - period. And that was despite the fact that he was known throughout his life as a R`n R muscian - who did some brilliant lyrics...(but hey, who cares about lyrics in rock music anyway...)

Calvert himself referred to this public misconception from time to time - as you can see on the QUOTES pages - where you will also find more infos on several of the works that appear on the following pages.
Quite in accordance to the strange fate of his career, even more of his literary and theatrical plans were dropped or left behind unfinished than other of his projects in the music area.

Being an artist with a talent for words AND music and always keen on mixing them, it's of course hard to draw a distinctive line between these territories. This process started very early on, when Calvert became Hawkwind's 'resident poet' in the early 70's, reciting his poetry to the band's sound-collages - some of these poems also appeared later in his first collection of poetry entitled Centigrade 232.

This page of the WORDS section is presenting the published works of Calvert - which is mostly poetry - prose, apart from the only published novel HYPE, seems to have been a minor field in Calvert's literary activities.
The poems - apart from the one's performed with Hawkwind - were taken from the two publications CENTIGRADE 232 (1977) and THE EARTH RITUAL (1986).
Other poems, unpublished or published in very rare and now unavailable magazines can be found HERE.

After Calvert's departure from Hawkwind in `78 Calvert conceived various shows that consisted of a mixture of sketches, stand-up-comedy, recitations of his poetry and songs from his solo-albums & recordings with Hawkwind - exploring how far he can take the audience in this unusual but always witty and inspired mix of contemporary poetry- and rock entertainment. A selection of those texts can be found HERE.

 



POEMS / CONTENTS


from:

Centigrade 232

published 1977


Insomnia

The Pause

Some Sketches of a Hand

Swing - flash-animation

Circle Line

Buster Keaton and the Virgin Sperm Dancer - illustrated & sound-file

Lines for a conception card

The Siren

Lady with a Looking Glass

The Day We Hunted Birdsong

Fountains in the Park

Snowfall

Storm

The Awakening

First Landing on Medusa

The Starfarer's Despatch

The Clone's Poem - illustrated & sound-file

Ode To A Time Flower

The Naked and Transparent Man Gives Thanks

A Refusal to Mourn the Removal, by Surgery, of Two Benign Tumours

A Letter of Complaint to the Council

Fly on the Screen - flash-animation

Centigrade 232 - illustrated & sound-file

Cleaning a Rapidograph

Beach Combing

The Clerk

Churchill's Secret Rock Deal

The Red Baron Regrets - flash-animation

Voodoo Child - flash-animation

the legend of ezra pound - flash-animation / must read

Fahrenheit 451 - illustrated & sound-file



from:

The Earth Ritual

published 1986


Frog God

The Earth Ritual

Scarecrows - illustrated + sound files

Wood Lice

Holy Joe

Pylons Revisited

Crane Fly

White Dynasty - illustrated + sound
[ i.e. an unreleased song/reading by Calvert ]

Married - flash + sound files [130 k]

Joker





Selected Poems
performed during the early Hawkwind concerts

In the Egg - flash-animation

Wage War

Ten Seconds Of Forever - illustrated + soundfiles + java-applets

Welcome To The Future - flash-animation



Prose & Misc. writings

Reality You Can Rely On
[ a truly visionary + must-read piece of writing - Calvert's invention of a futuristic mega-trust
this representation includes flash-animations/sound
]

Cattle at Twilight
[ two of Calvert's late heroes - Noel Coward and Jimi Hendrix - in heaven... ]

3 short prose-texts
[ from the early 70's - originally published in the legendary FRENDZ magazine ]

8 Days a week
[ a one-week diary from 1967, when Calvert had just rejoined Hawkwind
- originally published in the Melody Maker 2.10.76
]

HYPE
[ more infos on Calvert's first novel - incl. the final chapter of the book -]

 



Drama / Theatre-texts

The Box
[ a monologue - incl. sound-files - released here for the first time -]

The Star that Played with Laughing Sam's Dice

[ a stage-play focused on an incident during the time Jimi Hendrix spent in the army -]

a (lost) stageplay project on Brian Jones and Donald Crowhurst

[ infos on Calvert's plans for this play on two men who drowned under strange circumstances ]

Test Tube Baby of Mine
[ a black comedy on genetic engineering - a synopsis, photos, excerpts from the play -]



Centigrade 232

  Insomnia

I must have
accidentally
tripped the switch
that turns
the stillness on.



The Pause

When the stillness
Of the beginning
Was shattered
By the word
A fragment of it
Fell to the earth.

It tried to make
A home for itself
But could find
No resting place
For long. It stumbled
At the roots

Of a liars tongue
But was soon
Spat out. It lived
For an instant
In a murderer`s hand.
It lingered

At the fingertips
Of a thief.
For a time it hung
At the edge of war
By clinging
To a shrug of peace

Which soon gave way.
A politician juggled it
So much in his speech
That if fell, almost
Senseless to the ground.
Later a small boy

Who was about
To stamp on an ant
Got it stuck
To his shoe and had
A moments trouble
In shaking it free.



Some Sketches of a Hand

1.
Outstretched like this the palm
Does not give much away
To one unversed in palmistry.
It could just as easily
Slap a face as receive a gift.

It was a hand, much the same
As this, that spun the first wheel.

2.
Solid, compact, as good
For propping
As for uppercutting chins:
It was a fist, similar to this,
That upheld the first thinker's head.

3.
This opposing tackle is the secret
Of the hand, its key. That makes
It possible to grip. Depress
A hypdermic's valve.
Hitch a lift. Flick pages.
Signify that all is well.

It was a thumb like this
Sent Christians to the lions.

4.
This index could be pointing
To your guilt, or the way
To the public lavatories.
A finger such as this
Could pull a trigger
Or pick a nose.

5.
For a creature that only has one head
One pair of hands seems quite enough.



Swing - flash-animation



Circle Line

Seeing that I still had eight more stops
To go, and already read
The maps and advertisements from end to end,
And studied my own double-
Eyed, four-eye-browed freak
Of a reflected face for far too long; I took
To noticing another. Through a kind

Of snooker-shot of glances
Aimed against the glass, I could see her
Staring; but could not be sure
If it was at me. I smiled,
And saw her turn to speak
To someone next to her. I also turned:
And unexpectedly our eyes engaged

For just the instant that it takes for looks
To rocket through the tunnels
Of an unguarded gaze, and arrive
At the real self. Badly shaken
With embarrasment, we both looked back
At our images: safely imprisoned
In the hurtling stillness of the glass.

>
In 1975 Calvert won the Capital Radio Poetry Award with CIRCLE LINE HERE you'll find a transcription of the live-phone-call, when the Capital Radio's DJ delivered the good news to the poet himself...



Buster Keaton and the Virgin Sperm Dancer
- illustrated & sound-file

 

Lines for a conception card

The moon blacked out; a perfect night. A flight of Wellington set course
For Bremen. Two uniforms
Were discarded in a hotel room.
On one side she lay reading
While his cigarette burned down like a fuse.
Mars was in ascendance.

All this was before you were thought of.

His hand reached for the switch
And plunged the room into falling dark.
The bomb doors opened.
The child-making moment flared:
And buildings smouldered.



The Siren


I was never really one
Who was moved by music
To much of an extent.
But when I heard
That song, that song
That played on the strings of the wind,
I could not resist. And half my crew
Were sirenized so out of mind
We lost our course, went
Aground on rocks, and wrecked
Beyond repair.

Now I've heard her singing
Closer to,
Without the orchestra of storm
And the swaying choir of waves
For backing, it is nothing
Very special. Not much
Of a tune to it. Nothing
To really knock you out.

And as I plot
My position, escaping
On trades of ink into maps,
I can see the flashing of her eyes
At the edge of my sight.
Like the knife -
Glint glances that stab
Form doorways in the red-
Light districts of any port.





Lady with a Looking Glass

She casts her eyes,
like pebbles,
into the pool
of the mirror's stillness

and stares and stares

at the rippling image
until her gazing trails
like a net
to haul the illusion

of her looks. She looks

out of the mirror
at herself looking in.
And catches little wriggling smiles
then releases them

to the silver of freedom



The Day We Hunted Birdsong

Where he'd got it I didn't ask,
I was so knocked-out to see it:
Double-barrelled, loaded with risk;
A real shot-gun. 'Shall we try it?'

Humpo said, his screwed-up lenses
X-raying me for cowardice.
Humpo lived for taking chances.
Keep away, was my mum's advice.

I followed him to Romney marsh.
The gun was in a fishing-case
Tied to his cross-bar. 'What's the rush?'
I yelled, legs aching, 'S'not a race'.

We hid our bikes in leaves and went
On foot till we found a clearing.
'Bet you've never been on a hunt,'
He said, in his voice for lying.

I watched him open up the case
The same cold way he gutted fish,
Or fingered girls. He held the prize
Of dented metal threat to flesh.

I looked after the cartridges,
While he broke the barrel to load.
Thick sedge thrived along the edges
Of the lake. And the birds sang loud.

Then, without warning, Humpo fired
Both barrels off. 'C'mon, let's get!'
I croaked in panic. 'No-one heard',
Said Hump, 'don't be such a pratt'.

He froze, one finger raised for hush,
Tilted eyes gone strangely vacant:
A snap-shot trapped by Agfaflash.
'Hear the birds?' he whispered; 'I can't'.



Fountains in the Park

These fabulous statues
That speak an everlasting
Cascading word;
That declaim and endless torrent
Of parabolic utterance;
That spout
Without regard:
Are blind and deaf
And ever in mid-speech.



Snowfall

The bloated sky has burst at last
And now the air is teeming
With these Arctic spores. They waste

No time. By early morning
They'll have grown a new world
To explore. Craterless, still gleaming

From creation's mint. An undefiled
Planet: Until the houses loom
Like some invading fleet of brick-walled

Space-craft, come to stake its claim.



Storm

This house
Is washed up
On a mountain
Of rain.

The night
Has made us
Famous.
All around

Huge microphones
Are being tested
And flash-bulbs
Blind our windows.



The Awakening

I'd rather the fire-storm of atmospheres
Than this cruel descent from a hundred years
Of dream, into the starkness of the capsule.
Two of our crew still lay suspended, cool
In their tombs of sleep. The nagging choirs
Of memory, the lenghts of tube, and wires
Worming from their flesh to machinery
I would have to cut. Such midwifery
Is just one function of the leader here:
Floating in a sac of fluid dark, a clear
Century of space away from Earth.
One man stared from the trauma of this birth
Attentive to the tapes asssuring him
This was reality, however grim:
Our journey's end. The landing itself
Was nothing. We just touched upon a shelf
Of rock selected by the Automind.
And left a galaxy of dreams behind.....



First Landing on Medusa

Full waking took us days to realize.
Adjusting to the newness of our eyes
We stayed inside, performing simple tasks.
Hardly speaking, faces set like masks.
Until the time came round for us to set
The first feet on this world, to get
Our samples and erect all the instruments.
A barren planet, but to all intents
Another Eden opening its gates
For this chosen few who'd outslept their fates.
Anonymous, identical, in our suits
We entered the air-lock. My weighted boots
Would be the first to touch this unknown stone.
I led some distance, then I felt alone.
So I turned. And saw that the others were
Standing still. I radioed to make them stir.
But got no answer. So I waved my arm.
But they still stood as though a stoning charm
Had taken hold. I made my slow way back
And found each man had frozen in his track.
I hammered my gloved fist on visor-plate.
And pulled at pressure-padded arms. A state
Of utter trance had overtaken all my men.

My mouth felt dry. My fingers stiff. And then....



The Starfarer's Dispatch

I would have liked you
to have been deep-
Frozen too, and waiting
Still as fresh in your flesh
For my return.
But your father refused
To sign the forms
To freeze you.
Let's see you'd be, what,
About sixty now. And long
Dead by the time I get
Back to Earth. My time-
Suspended dreams were full
Of you as you were when I left.
Still under age.
Your android replica
Is playing up again.
It's no joke.
When she comes
She moans
Another's name.



The Clone's Poem
- illustrated & sound file

 

Ode to a Time Flower
[first published in New Worlds; 1973]

Your calyx hides a nectary of time
That with my fingers I could pluck as easily
As sounding strings to recite their chime.
And your most exquisite petals melt icily
In my palm. To hold the flow of moments past
As carefully as I would my last
Few seconds on Earth. Would that be Crime?
Or if I picked you just to see you turn
To crystalled pearl in my eyes, and learn
How Man is Angel on his way from slime.

Did heedless Eve think twice before she broke
The enjewelled fruit from its brittle stem.
Or the first man to reach out and stroke
The marijuana leaf condemn
Himself for greed when harvesting
And burning such a golden thing.
As this dreaming poet who just then spoke
Of your sacredness, and is now prepared
to do exactly as he first declared
And make of his museful words a joke.

But not quite as easy after all
I find, as my fingers reach to grasp,
Your gleaming head to wrench from its tall
Transparent stalk, they refuse to clasp.
As did Pandora's eager hands hold still
At the thought of the box containing ill.
Or the stoned explorers of Medusa stall
For time, not entered in their log,
Before they dared the petrific fog
That holds them still in its timeless thrall.

********* a nectary of time
That with my fingers I could pluck as easily
As sounding strings to recite their chime.
And your most exquisite petals melt icily
In my palm. To hold the flow of moments past
As carefully as I would my last
Few seconds on Earth. Would that be Crime?
Or if I picked you just to see you turn
To crystalled pearl in my eyes, and learn
How man is Angel on his way from slime.




The Naked and Transparent Man Gives Thanks

Amid the folding of all greenness left
I give my thanks whole-heartedly, for life.
For this vermillion tapestry, warp and weft
Of the blood vein's fabric. It's threads are rife,
Conspicuous; easy-meat for knife
Or microbe and the many ills that kill.
And yet stubborn and abundant still.

With ruins of ages around me, strewn
Like wreckage of an unsuccessful probe
Among the craters of a wasted moon,
I extend my thanks for this living robe
And its pulsing weave, to the moth-holed globe,
And unravelling, almost threadbare sky
Of the failing sun under which I lie.



A Refusal to Mourn the Removal, by Surgery, of Two Benign Tumours

No, I will not think of you
Laid out under lamps: the glare
Of eyes, above white bandit-
Masks, all trained on you; your flesh
Cut back and held by clamps, while
Instruments investigate;

Your pale, blue-veined breasts both touched
With expert vermillion
Openings, like two lip-sticked
Mouths, smiling, one on either
Side, a vision of Magritte's.
I will think of something else

And smoke a continuous
Cigarette. I will only
Think of the surgeon's pencil-
Marks, you wore the night before,
As a fading endorsement.
For readmission to some

Orgy, a eunuch doorman
Applied to your breasts as you
Stepped outside to take the air.
I refuse to think of you
Asleep beneath the breathing -
Mask of a black Ganesha:

Your trunk sucking oxygen;
Your eyes gone in; under more
Dazzle than this scarred page's
Angle-poise. I will not mourn
Your imagined death, for the taste
Of tears. I will only think

Of the morning, when I'll come
With grapes and flowers to rouse
You from your anaesthetic
Shell; to unwrap and open
The shy kiss I shall give you;
When you lie in albumen-

Coloured sheets: As exquisite
As though you were newly hatched




A Letter of Complaint to the Council


The sky is coming in through the roof.
The melted sun is dripping
It's golden oils on our clean white cloth.
Aeroplanes, like dead flies,
Are floating in our soup.
There is no waiter to complain to.

Our dining table is cluttered up
With scraps of cloud
And Dutchmen's trousers
At night, the stars descend
Like flakes of dandruff around my head.
While I am trying to roll the perfect cigarette

I have to dodge the tumbling planets.
We have placed a bucket, strategically,
To catch the moon. Our carpet is ruined
By the yolk of broken galaxies
And trodden Zeppelins.
This morning, while waiting yet again

For the man to come and fix the hole
I noticed also that a blade
Of wilderness has forced it's way
Through a crack in the floor; There are grains of desert
In the living room......



Fly on the Screen - flash-animation w. sound



Centigrade 232 - illustrated & sound file


Cleaning a Rapidograph

There is nothing more obstinate than this
Primadonna of precision pens.
Neglect it for a while and it will hiss
at your attempt to make amends

By scratching at the page without a sign
Of the eloquent arias of its line.

Take it to the nearest sink, unscrew,
and let its pent-up blackness flood:
A sudden massing of all you drew;
A burst of murdered dragon's blood.

Watch, as it merges with the water: plumes
Of squid's secretion; of octopus fumes.

In a while of soaking, the hollow nib
Should free itself of clotted ink.
And reassambled, be just as glib.
And nimble as the speed you think.

It took me less than a minute-and-a-half
To write this, with my Rapidograph.


Beach Combing

My small son, unsure of his feet,
Tottered beside me, shuddering
The world with his tiny boots;

My great strides jangled the stars
Like fairy lights, as we walked to the beach:
To search the tide's edge

Where the sea delivered
It's rolled horizons and dissolving skies.
We prised the sun from it's pebble of cloud

And watched it scuttle
sideways out,
As we looked for sand seed
To grow a desert in our window box.



The Clerk

From nine in the morning
Until five in the evening
He worked in the office:
Sat at a desk with a telephone,
A typewriter, and a bottle of pills.
When the telephone rang
It meant that he had
To pick up the receiver and say hello.
When the typewriter rang
It meant that he had to shift
It's carriage from the left to the right
When his head rang
It meant that he had to take a pill.

One day he found
That owing to a fault
In the ventilation system
The only intake of air
For the whole department
Was through a hole in his desk.
He toyed with this for a while,
Placing his Roget's Thesaurus over the hole,
Observing, with pleasure,
The effects of air-withdrawal
On the rest of the staff.
(Their faces turning faintly blue).

And not being one to miss a trick
Next morning he turned up for work
With a wad of chewing gum
And an aqualung in his briefcase.



Churchill's Secret Rock Deal
(after a headline in The Times)

Whatever you do, don't
mention politics,
said his manager.
Show them how
you can twitch
your jowels.
Make a V sign
like you just don't care.
O.K.?

O.K.

They sat and listened
to the tapes
in the A & R department's
quadrophonic office.
No-one looked at anyone. They tapped
their feet, and watched
the spools of the Revox
turn.

I like that track
about fighting
on the beaches,
said the man
from promotion.
Reminds me of Blood,
Sweat, and Tears.
I think we should
have a lyric sheet.

He did the cover
design himself,
his manager said.
It's a landscape
in Morocco....

Ah.

Well, we'd rather
have a photograph
of him in the homburg
and crombie, with a big
cigar. That's the image
We're going for.

O.K.? O.K.
O.K?

O.K.

And we'd like to put:
Never Before in the Field
of Human Conflict
out as a single,
if you'll do
the remix we suggest.

Right.

Right?

Right.

Then why don't we
go down to the rail-
way carriage
and sign
the contract?

It's a pleasure to do
business with you
Mr. Hitler.



The Red Baron Regrets
- illustrated & sound-files



Voodoo Child (In Memory of Jimi Hendrix) - illustrated & sound-file



the legend of ezra pound - flash animation - a must read!




Fahrenheit 451 - illustrated + sound files




The Earth Ritual

Calvert's second collection of poetry.
Read his comments on 'The Earth Ritual' on the QUOTES pages.


  Frog God

On a hard night of rain the road was full
Of glaring eyes alive in the headlights.
I thought of demons as I slowed.
Winding the window down, I saw them all
Blindly staring; rows of frogs with their throats
Fizzling song. The green digits glowed
Like ghosts on the dashboard; the cassette played

A Bartok string quartet. I turned it down
And heard the rain`s deep drum on the bonnet.
The wipers were on slow and ticked
Like an instrument payload on the moon.
These bags of bone are scaled lemmings, when it
Rains like this you find they have treked
Into the headlights´ tunnel and are blocked

Up inside their falling walls of brightness.
Not long before they were pupils gazing
From the complex vision of spawn -
Now, in all this dark and rain, they are eyes
Again: targets threaded out on a string
To face a double - barelled dawn.
I wondered how many my wheels had mown

As I got out of the car, taking care
Not to tread on any of these soft buddhas.
I herded them back to the mud -
To who on earth knows what jaws lurking there,
Then, with the feeling perhaps a god has,
Knowing his motives to be good,
I got back in the car and hit the road.



The Earth Ritual

Dusk, and a worm with a wound
In its side had fetched
Up out of the earth to die
On the altar of a crazy-
Paving stone; a sacrifice
To the trodden sun.
The forsythia shifts its druid
Robe of leaves, breathing
A mystique of green.

The wound is a bulge
Of pink, like a blood-
Shot eye: like a perished
Inner tube peering through
A buckled wheel`s rip. It is
The budding sphere of a new sun
That these curling agonies
Of contraction are
Labouring to give birth to.

Beginning with this runic U
It will, in time, spell out
Whole alphabets of writhing
Calligraphy for rescue to
The indifferent sky - as it pumps
Itself in all directions
Away from the suction
Of the hole. The loam
Brown business end, coiled

To a point in its silver
Wire, would seem to be
Wriggling towards independence
Like a spiral on metal
Shaved from a lathe. I lifted
This whole kinked and twitching
H.G. Wells monstrosity
Back of the Beowulf blades
Of the earth, and left

It to its long untying
Of the knots of the air.
Meanwhile, the spiders continued
To submit their latest designs
For the wheel, or filaments
For an everlasting sun -
Until it grew too dark
To lip-read anymore, these swollen
Ulcered mouthing of soil.


Scarecrows - illustrated




Wood Lice

Leaf-smear, root-rot, trash at
The black end of Autumn's
Spectrum hides them. Shadows
   Of rank, wet
Interiors they crawl
In their armadillo-
Quilted hides; anywhere

That mildews to the stink
Of pre-history's mulch
They breed: gaps between brick-
   Stacks left out
In the damp; the under-
Side of roofing tiles. Bound
In their armour of frowns

These living trilobites
Thrive in the still-high fumes
of a left-over time
   From before
The great rain forests grew
Their blue-print rings, that saw
The earth clogged in a mire

Of leaf-smear, root-rot, slime
Where new beginnings stir.
These tiny samurai
   Soldier on
In the dark - have not heard
That their war was over
Milleniums ago.




Holy Joe

He was so dozy he`d never
Recognize the neat backs
Of heads he`d trimmed once a fortneight,
Let alone the same red faces
That exchanged bursting looks
From out of the mirrors in front
Of his chair; so we`d follow him
When he was on his bike,
With its Victorian adverts
For The End of the World
And hurl our insults. "Holy Joe!
Holy Joe!" was, usually, enough.

He`d thrust his prophet`s beard at us,
His patched trousers flapping
Out from his cycle-clips, his eyes
Blinking like scissors - and dismount,
One daring aboy would dash
Behind and pull the handle bars;
Crashing the bike onto its side.
We`d aim our kicks and run
Before he had time to straighten
Himself into a threat:
"Holy Joe! Holy Joe!! But when
Our haircut time came round we`d sit

Head bowed, in the chair while he preached
And snipped for a shilling
A throw. (Our mums would always carp
About the five bob we needed
Now the price of haircuts
Had gone up again); but we went,
Cold-necked, to the fish shop, itchy-
Backed, with our exorted
Change; and later smoked our Woodbines
With vinegary fingers:
No longer sure how close
The end of the world was at hand.


Pylons Revisited
-for Stephen Spender-

The pose they hold is the pose
Of the robot: arms bent down
And elbows out; trailing those
Wires that could fry a town -
With their x-rays of a frown
They frighten away the crows.

In skeletal regiments
Along green fields they link
Cat`s-cradles of filaments,
Draw, with inedible ink,
A map of how robots think:
In straight lines, with no nonsense.

All across the changing sky
Stretch electric washing lines
Where the clouds ar ehung to dry -
Passing closed down mills and mines
On their way to neon signs,
Humming, humming merrily.


Crane Fly

September, when the light
Takes on an atmosphere
Of primal mire: when skies
   Are smeared,
Are smudged and run, like splashed
Ink-scribbling, spilt on, blurred,
The leather-jackets hatch

These whiskered sycamore
Keys. They drift like Chinese
Characters on the wind;

   Or kites
In a jiggling dragon-
Cult: dangling their snapped lines
Like fish no-one could land.

All year the nymphs will dig
And niggle at the roots
Of life: searching, wriggling
   For new
Alternatives to flight,
Or for some new way through
To pre-history's light

September's chemistry
Makes them scramble aloft
In a Kamikazi
   Squadron
Of stick and string, to fly
And mate, and lay, then drop
Like flailed chaff from the sky:

I tried to hunt one once
That kept on buzzing me
While I was reading. It stunt-
   ed free
Each time I swung. The way
Its legs hung over me:
Strings in a puppet play...

Wing whirling things like these
I can imagine trailed
Six legs the size of trees
   In rain-
Forests of the world's first
Cooling. Their spawn still waits
For changes in the earth.




White Dynasty - illustrated + sound [ an unreleased song/reading by Calvert ]


Married  [flash w. sound files - 130k]



Joker

The new style jester has no need to dress
In ridiculous knickerbockers and bells
To make us laugh at our own distress:
He stands there in a suit that tells
Us nothing of his power to make
Us roar and roll about and break
Loose from our formalizing cells.

He opens fire with his high speed patter
And has you in stitches from the screen,
Making fun of all the things that matter -
Nothing is sacred: The Church; The Queen.
And while you`re laughing he can't go wrong,
He quickly runs you through with a song
As cold as the singer he might have been.

You can spot the joker in any pack
Of men - who has to act the fool
As though to make up for some lack
He finds in others, or himself; stays cool
While they crease up, and seldom sings:
Quite satisfied to pull the strings
That lead from the punch-line of a crack.




Selected lyrics & Poems
- performed during the early Hawkwind concerts -

more lyrics from the Hawkwind periods and Calvert's solo-projects to be found on the LYRIC pages.

  In the Egg - flash-animation


Wage War

I would see the city as a mutant among the wonders of the world.
It's chimneys polluting the air.
Its roots poisoning the earth.
It's tentacles setting one man against another
and strangling them both in their hopeless contest.

I would map the cities' highways and tunnels and bridges,
its subways and canals, its neighbourhoods adorned by beautiful homes
filled with priceless objects, rare libraries, and fine rooms.

Its clever networks of pipes and cables and wires under the streets.
Its Police departments and communication stations.
Its hospitals, churches, and temples.
Its administrative buildings crowded with overworked computers,
telephones, and servile clerks.

Then I would wage war against this city as if it were a living body. I would welcome the night - sister of my skin, cousin of my shadow, and have her shelter me and help me in my battle.

I would lift the steel lids from the brothers and drop explosives to the black factories
and then I would run away and hide, waiting for the thunder which would trap, in mute telephone wires,
millions of unheard words.
Which would darken rooms full of white light and fearful people.

I would wait for the midnight storm which whips the streets and blurs all shapes
and I would hold my knife against the back of a doorman,
yawning in his gold braided uniform, and force him to lead me upstairs
where I would plunge my knife into his body.

I would visit the rich, and the comfortable, and the un-aware,
and their last screams would suffocate in their ornate curtains,
or tapestries and priceless carpets.
Their dead bodies pinned down by broken statues
would be gazed upon by slashed family portraits.

Then I would run to the highways and speedways that surge forward towards the city.
I would have with me bags full of bent nails to empty on the asphalt.
I would wait for the dawn to see cars, trucks, buses
approaching at great speed and hear the bursting of their tyres,
the screech of their wheels, the thunder of their steel bodies
suddenly growing weak as they crash into each other,
like wine glasses pushed off a table.

And in the morning I would go to sleep,
smiling in the face of the day,
the brother of my enemy.


Ten Seconds Of Forever - illustrated + sound + flash + java-applets



Welcome To The Future - flash-animation + sound







more words:

LYRICS / Unreleased poems / Performance pieces

biography           NEWS
works / part I / II / III   works / part IV / V / VI
R.C. & Hawkwind   collab-relations
the world ON Calvert   Michael Moorcock
Calv-ART   quotes
the spirit behind   the spirit's home

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