Search Results for: david russell

Before the Horoscope   Nine planets juggle me on cusps And boil flood-chemistry to speed me. Will blows from Geminian ash, Sinks through quicksilver.   Out-sensed, earth and fire are lit; Or fears invert that gaunt imminence Thrust all into the gulf.   Beyond sear fuller flames – Tempered, reserved, Approved as solid, then abhorred As dark absorption in one […]

Earthquake What happened? There was a fault. What’s a fault? It’s when one piece of the earth juts above another. Why does that happen? Because the explosion down below Goes on forever.   But was that fault anybody’s? It was the earth’s; it’s beyond us. The seething energy-city, ever greedy to accelerate. Did its makers long to sharpen that fault, […]

Checkpoint Lurching, they bluster – ghouls into the chasm. Fierce lava, blowing, nullifies their fall And dissipates harsh gravity’s concussion, Forces a seething screen of phoenix cowardice, Leaping to swell Into a fresh, mendacious crust, Tripping and throttling the led Into a smear upon pure metamorphic beauty. The skeleton’s jaws yawn apart; A stranded mountaineer was frozen At his prime […]

Connections Sheen caps ground rails Soaking harsh sleepers To rattle mud-flounced trains.   Drizzle dusts, Grinding against itself, Sparking the tracks’ sheen With casual exasperation;   Blinding the gravel Kicking in panic Against the basalt of its being.   The lifeline   Brine polishes ground cliffs, Moss-padded in their cavities, The waves of muscle buffet, Abrade the penciled rocks, Cowl […]

Carnival That peacock opulence, Swarming on strutting grime; That massed ecstasy, squeezing itself, Short-breathed, near suffocation; That sound-abandonment, seeming to plunge To deafness’s peace; Yet keeping those maimed faculties alive, Ever denying their last fulfilment.   Maybe it’s only I and it, I, starting in the middle And it, commensurate with my idea Of my own size?   Maybe I […]

In Transit   Unemployed’s tube journey: For those safe,  definable few minutes there is the duality Of oneself and the comfort of the seat – the circle; Seal; it chops perfectly, crossing the antilinear.   It induces connexity; the most complete awareness of the toil and monotony which went into making the tube, and the seat inside the train inside […]

Mid-Life   So much happened; So much didn’t – So nice to remember; So painful to recall   Now nothing is all, The power to recall Is an anaesthetic – Past strength Is pathetic.   In the middle, What’s kept still here What was and is gone, What never was – All levelled.   All comes to ground, abrades, That’s […]