Harry and his sister

It occurs to me
There's something
In me that's stopped up
Everything but
The outline of poems.
Because my sister,
she's married to this cunt and
His dad is a cunt too
And somehow they are in my head
These two cunts and I feel
It's my turn to take a cricket bat and
Get her out of there
Like al capone to his rivals
I should just be ruthless
And crack their heads
But a poet with a cricket bat
Even a baseball one is just a phony poet.
There's no chance of carving out
To the centre of a poem with
Those things

But though in my head
I am ruthless out of it I am
Quiet and thinking and turning things over
Slowly like I'm daft
Moping and brooding and
Days have become years
And I've stopped talking about it
And slowly have let slip
My family my sister and mum and dad and slowly all
Because of this thing
Which is so far in and not going anywhere else
There is no insides anymore just scratch marks
Instead of poems
I just make the charcoal outline
Of words
Whenever one occurs

And nothing occurs much now even for outlines cos

If you can't save a sister then what's the use eh?
What's worth filling in?

Quiet harry

Harry doesn't want to
talk about why
It's all so less and less
Doesn't want anyone hurting
And so it goes on and on
And he waits and
is there
Until that time when then
That's it, not even a sign.
He just isn't

Dead harry

I wish I could fall from a mighty tower
Into the rough sea
And die on the rocks
With no one sad left behind
A few people pretending to recall
some kind words
I said maybe, and maybe they're smiling
Briefly before getting on with their lives.
Dreams harry just like that,
Only more like as in a poem
With a little more tension
And maybe less of the fancy stuff,
A bit more brutalist in the end maybe
Like actually no one gives a damn at all or
All the smiles more meaningful.

Like brecht harry.

Back to poems that have backbones.
Harry says he doesn't want to be anything
But impressive. I will get workers
To listen in to my poetry
They will learn off me many things
Because that's what I'll do.
I'll teach all their kids to be nobel poets so that
They'll get to be killer clever
And no one will force them
Into poetry stuff against their will
Unless it's a duty which might
Impose it's will back on them somehow
Like it's supposed to anyhow
In a stanza about being a puritan something or other.
And I have seen education work
And it's hard work and ambition that fires it up.
Don't fuck with me by saying
Bad things about education
And then pretend to be a gangsta.
And don't fuck education up because you're
A snob either. I'm going to get everyone to the
Top of the class writing this
Mutters harry from the back of the bloody queue.
I've worked all my life thinking this poetry stuff
He adds as if trying to explain something but really
He knows never to explain, never tell anyone
The whole damn story.

Harry and some colours of things.

Side of the roadside
And its rising thirty degrees and
In the pool just one black girl in a black bikini swims
And in the field corn bigger than normal corn
A black fire circles where aliens
Just landed but died before hitting out.
There are just millions of blue flies that died in the
Same instant, mysteriously and without fuss.
In the sky no nothing, there's nothing.
It's just blue. And the wind carries
A sail of cloth off of one of the lines
From the town. The estate is orange.
All the rooms have windows that
Don't fit and the people there
All have names, all have lives, all will
Fulfil a kind of destiny and be recorded
If they're lucky by those who know them
In green shadows.
Yet none of them saw the aliens die
Nor the blue flies for that matter. The
Mystery is what happens whenever it does.
This is a mystery that has fathoms to go down.
Most people just carry on.
Though
A special one, who through her own fortune
And for her own sense of well-being
Seizes something out of this moment
She just settles down with her red cat
And her puce drawing book brought back
From italy by some idiot dad
She settles down and starts to doodle.
There is no telling what the marks mean
And no telling if she'll stop soon.
The only thing certain here
Is that she has a special feeling
About just this one time
And it was the time some kind of aliens died
And burned up a piece of cornfield
And some blue flies were involved too.
So in her hand her pencil
On her lap a cat and in her mind
Something limitless and uncanny
Something from another world
Or from this one but nowhere we know
A place coloured, in this dusky light,
A kind of off-the-cuff purple.

Strong harry.

On a wine bottle's label
There's little room
But on it harry writes a simple poem.
It was about his mum and dad about
How he thinks his dad is getting ready to die
And how this makes him feel strong about
Certain things - like feelings - and not strong
About other things - like winning the nobel prize
For literature. Because after this writing spree
Which takes all of eleven seconds to get
Out of the way
Harry reckons they'll say it isn't literature
What he's up to, why it's hardly writing at all.
. My feelings though
He roars out as he opens another damn bottle
Of the scotch he nabbed
Dropping the wine now he's sunk it to the dregs
My feelings are as open as my gob.
Listen to this, he yells, all this
Feeling makes me think
They should have a nobel prize
for these fuckers instead.

So it's all about his mum, dad etc
That poem on the bottle label.

iceberg harry.

How big is this poem? asks harry
And the fox, sitting on the wall
Doesn't care a fuck what he's saying
Say what you like, foxes
Don't get English. Well, explains harry,
This isn't all the poem. This is
Just the visible part. Like
An iceberg, most of it lies underneath.
This is just the point.
Like with a lie, don't take it at face value.
Some days, lying's more truthful.
And big's a value judgement. Big is good.

Whatever, the fox just buggers off being
a just an animal and
b. a figment of the drunk's whatever

harry together

So together they reach
The priceless harbours, deft old masters, subtle railway journeys
A plush room overlooking an historical clocktower
And a Christmas mall stuffed full
Of too expensive shimmering cargo,

And a walk from the centre to the station reveals
A city of penitents and darkening lights
Tower blocks and fast cars
Modern art that unsettles the expressionless god
Of the past masters, the couple moving
Through the dimming light hardly distinguishable
One from the other, shadows melded,
Knowing they'll never stumble without
Both stumbling, knowing that playing the genius couple
Is more truthful than all the cities of the world
All their journeys, tombs, churches, art, money

Knowing play's more serious.

Harry and the old masters

Harry went with her to the gallery
And they looked at the old masters
And wondered about when they were painted
And what thoughts they were supposed to have
There was one of luther
Who looked like he knew what had to be done
Harry held her tightly
Wanted to fuck behind the indoor fountain
But there were just too many people around
There was a kid Christ
And the adults around him they weren't giving
Him any warning about the real world
The place was dark and you couldn't
Hear anything from outside
The traffic and that
And later there was a gallery that was locked.
A staircase on the outside
In a courtyard took you up a couple of flights
And then the door was bolted forced
You to draw a blank.
Harry took her hand hard in his
Like he wanted it to sink through the flesh
Through the bone and blood
And he wanted to nail
A message on all the doorways
Ten edicts of love,just that.
Everything else
Had no mercy in them.

Harry shops

All in her tender years
Harry gazes at her
He'll swim in the sunshine
Will embroider her a gown
Of pearls and gems
Come back after slaying the dragon
From one side of the arch
To the other
Far away in the Italian church

Across the way in the ochre light
Bells are ringing in his ears
Every trader in every shop
Bows at her feet, silks and satins
Strewn at her toes, and shop girls
Take notes as she vanishes.

She's a-top the world
Wine at her sparkling lips
And prada in her arms
Harry used to think he couldn't
Step it up and go
But these tender feelings so strong
Shop him in triple triplicate
Puts him on top of the word
Right up there alongside
her hectic thrilling heart
where fucked love poems to her
get words to spiral like rose petals
cavorting in hot ash

ships burning up under a volcano desire.

Semolina harry

This your mama's semolina
is as sweet as …well, I just
Love to lick it til all the cream
Is stuck between my teeth
And I'm grinning so

Grins old-goon dog
Scratch my belly harry.

What harry sees

What harry sees in some of these
Old paintings are crews about
To get cut down to the exact size
Of a human box
And pain coming from afar in blue mysteries
Trees that shape the tough brown lines
That seem to get drawn in
From the eye of god to bus stations
Trains shops and money
From out the frame to way down within.
There's always some old guy who
Sees it again as a joke. the first time
Was tragic. it's the famous way
And women who are all hankering
For peace and yet give birth
To nothing but endless carnage
Have all finished and
Are settling back to see
The tears get spilled and
When harry sees all them baby jesuses
He sees older men weaker than the kid
All knowing what's going to happen
Over the hill on a white horse with black eyes
They all know because they were kids once and
They've seen the consequences of being born
And never asked for it which makes them worship
Jesus because he did.
The green slithering dragon
Is coming out the gents and if every girl in town
Is feeling her virginity every boy
Is on its lips on fire. Harry likes
To watch out for this kind of art thing
In dark quiet rooms where the people
Watching seem like the cat got all their tongues
And harry knows that under every calm
Face there's terror in the brain
This stuff making them piss their pants
On the sly going on and on into dark time.

Harry and the old men, gods…

Harry looks at gods and satyrs and
Fat old men with red berry faces
Drinking too much and going on drinking
When they know it's far too much
And they should stop
It isn't going to do them any good

Through the fields and forests these old drunks
Chase about with women and cherubs taking the piss
Though one or two see the glint
In the old tossers' eyes like they know
These used to be dangerous ,
So now they really should wear more clothes
They look wild and weird and kind of glorious
In their scanties and surely they are roaring
Short of breath and sweating too much
To be anything but running along the way
Through dust and strangling vines
To the hidden moon dashed underwater
A drowning pool that'll wash them right back down
To their worn out yonder selves.

And who'll forget the sight
Who'll forget their yelps
And the grasses crushed under their lumpy feet
Their blackened nails and greased arses
The sun sliding down their hairy backs
And snow suddenly falling out of purple skies
And west and east, north and south all pointing
One way, through the clocks, through one old eye
That still blinks in astonishment through all age and all space
To the conclusion that
The old in love are infections.

Harry wonders at the paintings…
How much do they know they know?..