Tuesday 31 May 2011

(f13)

not put you to sleep
but make you feel less bothered
the nurse reassures

© Gerald England

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 25th August 1994

Unpublished

Monday 30 May 2011

(f12)

three patients waiting
impending operations
not one of them speaks

© Gerald England

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 25th August 1994

Publications

1996 Sparrow (Croatia)
1997 Time Haiku (UK)
1998 Sparrow (Croatia)
2004 TIME HAIKU ANTHOLOGY (London, Time Haiku Group)

*****

tri bolesnika èekaju
predstojeèu operaciju —
ni jedan ne govori

GERALD ENGLAND

(translated from English to Croation by Marijan Èekolj)

Publications

1996 Sparrow (Croatia)
1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

Sunday 29 May 2011

Poetry In The Marquee

POETRY IN THE MARQUEE

At the Dales Festival
the puppeteer's performance
was interleaved between the two
halves of the poetry reading.

Outside in the blustery wind
the poets muttered
she'd stolen half
their audience.

Then her son complained
they couldn't clear
their props and go
until the poets had finished.

The second-half audience
was not quite as big
but more attentive
with fewer distractive passers-by.

The poets read;
the musicians played;
the wind flapped the canvas;
the audience clapped loudly.

© Gerald England

Composed: Hawes, 20th August 1994

Publication

1997 Pennine Platform (UK)

Saturday 28 May 2011

Margaret & Malcom

MARGARET & MALCOLM

When Margaret first met Malcolm
she baked him a pie
of magpies she had caught
with her chattering.

After the honeymoon
she took him to Big Sur
where the snaking highway leaps
across canyons on towering bridges.

They made love beneath the redwood
the music of their movements
arousing the faerie spirits
who cheered at their union.

On her shoulders she carries
two black dogs with faces like cats'
their long tails locking
with the plaits of her hair.

Someone gave her two axolotls
salamanders from Mexico
but one of them died
before the vet could arrive.

Malcolm fell on the cliffs
trapping his leg in a fissure
drowning slowly as the waves
swept over him at the incoming tide.

Margaret cried
till her tears
turned her jewels
into feathers.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 5th August 1994

Publications

1996 Swagmag (UK)
1998 The Bohemian Forest (Internet)

Friday 27 May 2011

(f11)


Image © Gerald England from Geograph


in the pub carpark
waiting for the wind to drop
would-be balloonists

© Gerald England

Composed: Nantwich, 6th July 1994

Publications

2006 Clouds Peak (Internet)

Thursday 26 May 2011

(f10)

openly smoking
schoolgirls on their way home
pass the graveyard

© Gerald England

Composed: Mottram in Longdendale, 5th July 1994

Publications

2006 Clouds Peak (Internet)
2007 Ginyu (Japan)

Wednesday 25 May 2011

[5u]



© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 5th July 1994

Publication

1997 Raw NerVZ Haiku (Canada)

Tuesday 24 May 2011

No Shame, No Blame

NO SHAME, NO BLAME

We were never lovers
Because we shared a common love
Neither of us could compromise.
The love that keeps us apart
Kept us together.

Though we shared no intimacies
As the gossips would imagine,
Exchanging cherished moments
We were close in ways
That they will never know.

© Gerald England

Composed: High Legh, 3rd July 1994

Publication

1999 Poetry Chain (India)

The Fields of Bosnia

THE FIELDS OF BOSNIA

The banks of the Danube
can be lonelier than outcast iron mines.
I saw nothing but
before the females in my family told us
she was back
and not terrified of the death.
But where cries the night
in rape to the shrieking rain?
We will lie anywhere.
Kataja threw her daughter's head;
held it as though scraping hell.
I crushed it into tatters.
A new demon rules Eden,
a leper nun who doesn't breed,
a brew reeking of loyalty.
I still don't live in mud because I have children.
I go without supper;
his meeting takes the chocolate eclairs domed with green
cattle are aimed at the bulging windows.
They say KEEP OFF;
this place between two pinnacles
of delectable phosphorescent green rocks
where a huge bird scuttles up towards Mostar blowing snow.
They roll in their bathing suits,
Their barrels smell of dirty blackness.
In the light so many wives attack him.
Two girls pass gripping a little old bed sheet.
He is a swirling mass of unhealthy tree, under the woman,
feeling sorry, shuffling along,
Men of the burnt fields grow instant whiskers;
meanwhile the sunny meadow is life.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 19th June 1994

Publications

1999 Gravity (Internet)
2001 Blue Beat Jacket (Japan)

Monday 23 May 2011

Gay Macho Pleasures On Autumn Afternoons

GAY MACHO PLEASURES ON AUTUMN AFTERNOONS,

You weave a song about the hypocritical stance of bodies;
Compatibility rating is positive, floating,
As it works in the issue shared by both men,
Like an offer, indirect, trying to recall the sight
Of the individual's imaginative role in contemporary society.
49 years later, snooping through lesbianism
In a motor vehicle that runs on vanilla erotica,
She rejected sex altogether some nine times.
The odd admirer may be tantamount to this
Wednesday morning maintaining the glare of the bedroom,
Your head against a women's movement while we wait;
She riding on another body for every human act of love,
A motion tinged with blood,
But extricating women from behind
We know the ghosts hung on your dick;
Orgasm is entirely unconscious
Like condensation on ripe fruit, instead of mimesis.
So liking you desperately, she wanted the penis.
You must believe that the only solid gold mouse is a woman
With blood that stains my handkerchief.
The act comes to fight for his contention that the haunting face
Is the "Real thing" in the moon.
May the wild winds of frost return to what remains of flame.
Surely her teeth sank high in his penis and hearts gorged
On the real thing of yore with ungainly fowls whose footfalls tinkled.
This grim denying of the lamplight
Perfumed from this improbable pursuit,
Represents no token of what will be right,
Gloating over, and nothing further then to remember
But Madam, and childish superstitions.
Suppose we eat beans before taking the teeth again,
She aggressively appropriates without griping pains or the devil,
Leaves because the wait also reinforces
And Butch finally messes up what this is charged for access.
This I stood repeating, in a flirt and came again.
Both men eagerly feel that the male body is underrepresented,
As if she retains a drachma of rhubarb,
To harden the teeth, and to make them sound and white.
Back through the sound of sweet trees,
Whose velvet violet roots become entirely white rose vinegar
They will remove neuralgia from the onion,
Though thy God hath spoken!
A mouthful of landscape signifies simply that snatch of white cream in my chamber.
Dominant sexual positions are presumed to be still waiting,
Though her startling announcement covers your eyes with femininity.
Who gathers then to watch her clear the distance,
To form from your head the tiny object whose fond mutation about the day will appear.
I add weight to hear the lamplight gloated o'er
In any dusty matter, and all about a cushioned seat.
Other terms occupy the risk of a woman thus betrayed.
Precisely this space becomes increasingly assertive about the dreaded future of almonds,
The angels tapping somewhat louder, rather than banning it!

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 5th June 1994

Publication

1998 pURL (Internet)

Even Queens Have To Die

Text withheld for now as the poem is presently still under submission.

Composed: Gee Cross, 16th May 1994

Unpublished

Saturday 21 May 2011

Convening in Cleveland

CONVENING IN CLEVELAND

(in memory of the late John Brander)

On the last night before demolition
after the Karaoke has been silenced
and the girl with the real tattoo
has ushered home her drunken beau,
the remaining guests at the seedy, downtown hotel
gather behind the bar along with the staff
to drink and talk late into the morning.

Up at the Town Hall, two days on
from the Pop Concert where hoards
of pubescent young things defied goose pimples
to walk the streets outside in thin chiffon
not hiding their curvaceous flesh,
now dock-lads on pay night tear up crash barriers
to use as weapons against their rivals.
As the police sirens wail,
the cigarette-smoking feminist
escapes the melee in a taxi;
joins the rest of the hotel party
unaware of the building's forthcoming demise.

The management offers round the remnants
of a birthday tea they've over-catered for;
gives the Irish girl a meat pie -
"to fatten you up, lass!".
After one bite she stubs it in the ashtray,
plays a jig on her harmonica,
then "God Save The Queen" and
rounds her recital off with "The Red Flag".

Sharon from the bar
keeps asking for change to phone a taxi,
trying to get away from the cellarman
whom she claims is moving in so close
he's almost halfway into her bra.

The attorney from the U.S. of A,
buys some salt-and-vinegar crisps,
but after close scrutiny of the sell-by date
decides he ought to send them back.
Even after his tenth pint, the Yorkshire psychologist
tells him it's probably best to let sleeping crisps lie
rather than risk a confrontation,
since the landlord is busy playing pool
and threatening to smash his cue
over the top his cellarman's head,
if he doesn't leave Sharon alone.

The man from the university,
recounts the time he wanted to tar his shed roof;
how he purloined a pail from a road-mender's site,
transported it in his boot all the way back from Wales -
when weeks later his wife nagged him to finish the job,
only then did he discover it wasn't macadam;
he'd stolen a bucket full of shite!

At breakfast time, the bulldozer
is already waiting outside.
The financial advisor with the irritable bowel
cannot stomach the sausage
that has been defrosted overnight on the bar;
then he finds there is no paper in any of the loos.

The regulars are going to give
their custom to the Wig & Pen.
Adrian, John, Geoff, Gerald,
Hilary, Maureen and Jean,
the last seven guests
all sign in the visitor's book
that they'll be coming back one day.

© Gerald England

Composed: Middlesbrough, 16th May 1994

Publications

1996 Harvest (USA)
1998 Boggers All (UK)

Friday 20 May 2011

[6k]



© Gerald England

Composed: Whitby, 14th April 1994

Publications

1995 Apostrophe (UK)
1996 Still (UK)
1998 Raw NerVZ Haiku (Canada)

(f9)

old inn on the moor
now tarted up for tourists -
blot on the landscape

© Gerald England

Composed: Middlesbrough, 14th April 1994

Publication

1996 Sparrow (Croatia)

*****

stara krìma u pustari
zatvorena za turiste —
ljaga za krajolik

GERALD ENGLAND

(translated from English to Croatian by Marijan Èekolj)

Publication

1996 Sparrow (Croatia)

Thursday 19 May 2011

[5t]



© Gerald England

Composed: Middlesbrough, 13th May 1994

Publication

1996 Iota (UK)

Wednesday 18 May 2011

(f8)

branches of old trees
mark out the middle
of eroded paths

© Gerald England

Composed: Leeds, 16th April 1994

Publication

2006 Clouds Peak

Tuesday 17 May 2011

(f7)

the dog drops its stick
comes wanting to be friendly
but slinks back halfway

© Gerald England

Composed: Leeds, 16th April 1994

Publications

1997 Time Haiku (UK)
2004 TIME HAIKU ANTHOLOGY (London, Time Haiku Group)

Monday 16 May 2011

[5s]

and he sits on the
loo reading the poems
of Marianne Moore
whilst contemplating
the rooftops of Prague

© Gerald England

Composed: Leeds, 16th April 1994

Publication

1996 Presence (UK)

Sunday 15 May 2011

(f6)

looking for thermals
the rook takes off from the edge
as jet soars over

© Gerald England

Composed: Leeds, 16th April 1994

Publications

1996 Q (USA)
1997 Lateral Moves (UK)
2000 MIR (USA)

Saturday 14 May 2011

(f5)

amid the heather
splash of yellow on the brown
misplaced daffodils

© Gerald England

Composed: Otley Chevin, 16th April 1994

Publications

1997 Time Haiku (UK)
2004 TIME HAIKU ANTHOLOGY (London, Time Haiku Group)

Friday 13 May 2011

(f4)

weathering well
Victorian graffiti
on glacial rocks

© Gerald England

Composed: Otley Chevin, 16th April 1994

Publications

2004 Sons of Camus Writers International Journal (Canada)
2006 Curlew (UK)

Thursday 12 May 2011

[4v]



© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 10th Feb 1993

Publication

2004 Raw NerVZ (Canada)

Wednesday 11 May 2011

(f3)

sunday morning soak
i languish in hot water
distant churchbells sound

© Gerald England

Composed: Denton, 6th February 1994

Publication

1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

*****

mokro nedjeljno jutro —
æamim u vruæoj vodi uz udaljena
crkvena zvona

Gerald England

translated from English to Croatian by Marijan Èekolj

Publication

1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

Tuesday 10 May 2011

(f1)

1994
the snow and frost of last year
- melted in the night


© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 1st January 1994

Publication

1994 Mirrors (USA)

Monday 9 May 2011

Gone Not Gentle

GONE NOT GENTLE

on spindrift pages
from the raging moon he wrote
for heedless lovers

by St.Martin's Church
poetry pilgrims honour
a simple white cross

at the Lamb & Flag
talk is of a drunken poet
stripping off his shirt

in the U.S.A.
professors then young students
recall his last lecture

curtains still open
in a thousand small theatres
to Under Milk Wood

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 15th December 1993

Publications

1994 Purple Patch (UK)
1994 Current Accounts (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1998 Black Creek Review (USA)
1998 Perihelion (Internet)
1998 Black Creek Review (Internet)

Sunday 8 May 2011

Putting the Horror Movie in Context

PUTTING THE HORROR MOVIE IN CONTEXT

tensions of the night
preventing sleep
we go downstairs
disturb the dog
share tea and cake
with the "Vampire of Venice"
gape as his victim
throws herself from a pinnacle
then wakes up
not with broken back
but naked in his chamber
blood dribbling from mouth

as the television breaks
to a commercial
for washing-up liquid
we laugh - return to bed
equipped to deal
with our own demons

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 17th November 1993

Publications

1994 Weyfarers (UK)
1994 Mobius (USA)
1996 The Affiliate (Canada)
1997 Gallery Zandstraat (Internet)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)

Saturday 7 May 2011

Lucky Pierre

LUCKY PIERRE

Earth, the bird, the vine and advance notification of smoke blown horizontally from rolling whirlpools.
Then he was quiet, cramped, then whoosh, beneath one -
where it departed into each other -
a girl with white on their shattering windshields, sending heads, gripping two, three, barren,
Undeterred by a department of vegetation, side-stepping the suicides,
Opening his fishy-smelling sealskin mitts, hobbling to the man on black slush:
Lucky Pierre. He is drawn into the echo of transgressions;
The doors were by his hands seized on his open grave!
But this wild terrain cleft violently to an end of pale expanse for muffins, what worked him.
He screams with tenebrous absences behind the blood,
The world; the eye that can see the dying city streets.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 5th November 1993

Publications

1997 Gallery Zandraat (Internet)
2002 Fire (UK)

Friday 6 May 2011

Lawrence

LAWRENCE

Lawrence never owned up to show you
How to catch flies with a life on landing.
If she pricked her lung and lips, honestly,
It would not have taught her anything
About the short story neatly tied
A lesser man does not get stranded in the sky.
The girl continued with moral injunctions against Freud.
They must be republished for they were not
Whipped but spit on the walls
And wanted language to the end of breath.
Though it has been accepted,
He cries at her nakedness.
In new forms, whose hands
Could have the realm of absorption shoved down
As faded tenderness to us
In soft summer breeze poetry?
Splashing through unity,
Kicking, smashing decorously into captivity,
He whimpers to the message in time
So we can keep it as aversion of colliding steel,
While she kicks him up to the edges of art.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 5th November 1993

Publications

1998 Boggers All (UK)
1998 Black Creek Review (USA)
1998 Black Creek Review (Internet)

Thursday 5 May 2011

Microcosm 20

MICROCOSM 20

Purged in soft flesh like the expert tease, she leapt back served under a shadow.
If a nut is drawn into each field of reinforced cohesion
And by it a tone with her cunt, they may declare a huge bird cowed
Skinny men rode bicycles not conflicting with traffic rolling whirlpools.
A slow train to Turkey keeps your beautiful mother asleep with an anthropologist.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 3rd November 1993

Publication

1998 The Bohemian Forest (Internet)

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Microcosm 19

MICROCOSM 19

Think of this sudden lack of beauty as a unique experience as senses in front teeth clattering,
Pain can shock and berries like salt on the naive lead nowhere
Splashing through our way in a genuine leopard skin
Katy threw the usual place with rat-prints and sweat under a common defence,
Without quaint proper good-byes to make futures of thought,
I found ruby tipped and maybe with the autumn breezes
To dig through our clothes black indications shivering in that sleep

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 3rd November 1993

Publication

1994 Lost & Found Times (USA)

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Microcosms 17 & 18

MICROCOSM 17

I didn't think she'd write in the front room, coffee frosting from her,
Thus making the glorious sun a common defence,
Under the impression that the males in my family told them she leaped back from it.
Deeply Katy threw her work to disapproval and confronted banality
They aren't nice people casting off into images comprising their way:
She may not escape. My cacti piling up, paying electricity to make big beef curry.

MICROCOSM 18

Compare the use the countryside.
Their post-modern world hides structures in their expectations of trees and falling,
Her typically bold narrative grounded in due course.
Critical where it fits better, you call your beautiful mother accomplice to a date
Listing the tired, stressed, most delicate rustles of the media
If you could be a headache and not bother taking off the old daylight.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 3rd November 1993

Publication

2004 ZYX (USA)

Monday 2 May 2011

Microcosm 16

MICROCOSM 16

A continued escalation of colliding steel,
Sleepless hands seized on landing.
Their conception of the irony was such that Either an idiot speaks of bodies
Or Momma gets more of this shit,
Such sport, hookers and so typical of her lips.
Man, without supper, you had forgotten
What happens to the brew
Reeking of a pang of houses,
The hints are built up on Fridays.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 3rd November 1993

Publication

1996 Transmog (UK)

Sunday 1 May 2011

tanka 13

walking with the dog
after the snooker final,
night of Halloween -
full moon lightens up the sky;
in the sharp wind it's so quiet.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 30th October 1993

Publication

1994 Read This (UK)