excerpts
Fludd Street
Sweet mad regal river
Rising to our upper floor
The Tyburn crosses under Wigmore St.
an elevation notable
(Uchida’s Schubert
sonata no. 21)
a dip on Piccadilly
entering Green Park
making there its confluence
with Mother Thames.
***
The Epicenes -
Taking the nightbus
N9, N10, N11
The madrigal
Epicenes
lounge in phosphorescent
Heaven
legs dressed in ambiguous sheen
Light green gowns
surrounded by
reflections of
the same scene
projected onto
a floating night
out the window
down below
the driver hums
a dream in
dark red womb
the sleeping workers
returning home
to repeat
end-of-the-line
sleep unaware
of an open floor
above them
where angels
in exchange for safety
dare
* * *
Waking fantasia with gods -
My jubilee, in both worlds Zeus
Of word and deed entwined
Pure gold from the commingling of thighs
He can maintain at night his high reception
Through patterned cosmic maps
Arrays infernal drive him to his undone
Mortal and immortal lust
In fear and anger she transforms
Her beauty forced into disgust
No challenge to his hasty guise
His mask and bill the schwanen delves
He must because he must
A stranger entering the house
Esteems the sacrifice and raises
Oceanus in his liquid coils.
Invisible Hephaestus wraps
Infinitesimal gold
Around us in a net
As vital and precise
As time and consequences
Gods may cease and gods may quake
But no one doubts the unrelenting foil
* * *
August augury -
Now is my time on earth
confined by rising floods
here in my quartered yard
the mower stalled
M. reduced to this
hiding in plain sight
sergeants in squad cars
underneath flood lights
Who voiced these useless prophecies
that carry emptiness as if it mattered
desperation gathered greedily
by witnesses both resolute and blind
I found an unused microscope
dismantled in a drawer
of the guest house room I rent
for my temporary vacation
Of course I could not fix it
but rigged a lens to see the image
of enormous sugar crystals big as satellites
hurtling across the interstellar midnight sky
I’m not frightened for the world
a dragonfly has landed on a peach
I have nothing to offer anyone
the ocean answered by a floating leaf.
May augury -
* * *
It hurts me to look
at the house where you lived
I can’t be sure
if it’s my death or yours
And is it art?
brought back to life
a knowledge peeled
from my eye skin
All that we hurt and bear
makes nothing that will last more than an hour
From the wild woods we hide
grow figs, grow dates, grow obsolete inside
* * *
April augury -
Easter weekend the flood has risen
Past the approximate prediction
With uncertain consequences
The brown slurry fingers through the fences
Here is the poem I was given
for an audience concerned
with drowning in the river
risen up their basement stairs
Here is the answer I have
for the poorly prepared heaven
our underground demons
flooding hidden graves
Overhead drone
of invisible plane
having tools
but not a plan
Numbers out do us
each love story
loss of virginity
flushed into obscurity
It’s funny to think
that reading the famous
once brought us closer
to history’s chapter
Possibly sane certainly sinking
As we eat canned soup and
Find little reasons
To carry on
The poet never has a house
A general may invade the land
A pathogen or some insult
The neighbour birds fly off
Before a warning shot is even fired
I have renounced this sofa,
cup, even this tea
you cannot steal a centime
from a man without a dime
The army turns left
over the bridge
breath foggy
in their masks
The town is empty
reeks
of corpse
& entropy
the pets know how to die
at their masters’ feet
the deer know instantly
when the streets are empty
*
returning to box
just what you need
what would you save
from the burning world
Earth Landing
Apollo of the plague
gifts hexameter to
foreign-tongued Sybil
chanting from her rock
His laurel hut
hidden in dense woods
a toad
under a root
it seems the lynx
is only visible
if she cares to be
nonchalant before the kill
a sorceress fed by prophecy and bees
lighting the logos
in the space between
the photon and the place where it had been
earth from earth
back from moon
no longer earth
to land upon
* * *
A Piacere --
Blood hosed down
the paving slabs
My sink stand sways
sliced fish gills on
The marble chopping block
Riot police
washed away like
A mistake
you get annoyed
at my desire
Reduces you you say
In the world’s view
it is my needs as much
as violence
torpedoing the Halifax
in her caesura
too bad Bella
moved to Germany
floodlit street in curfew
tangerine and aqua blue
moths and cops
come out of nowhere
for the show
the flares smell so familiar
the screams subside
across the square
untended candles
keep a vigil after
all the people go
* * *
Consuming chaos -
neither a boat nor a body
seemingly heading downstream
thought turned to fear
as soul dissolved in the shower
the fealty of selfhood
swayed overboard
an eager corpse
for the endless sea to consume
others abated others contained
others released of themselves
a snake that swallows itself
a swallow that swallows a snake
the sea and the land rush together
the last loaf of bread has been baked
we will crawl on our hands and knees
as we search for the last story told
we collapse in ignorance there
as the shore unfolds and folds
Martin Corless-Smith's most recent books are The Melancholy of Anatomy (Shearsman Books, UK, 2021) and The Ongoing Mystery of the Disappearing Self (SplitLevel Texts 2021).