| 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
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