adam 7

his charming surface judgements
did not look beyond
the tissue of truth —
he'd been floundering for some time
— overwhelmed like fish
washed out to sea with the tide —
the gulf stream of life

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1996

Publication

2000 EOTU (Internet)

adam 6

this guileless bubble
came to exist
within the womb
as fruit implanted
in a rich pasture,
suckling on its mother,
absorbed in a world
of tissue, cartilage and blood

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1996

Publication

2000 EOTU (Internet)

adam 5

said the mountaineer,
condescending,
— It's easy —
provided you remember —
don't look down
— said I —
that's all very well
while ascending
but what about
when you are coming down?

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1996

Publications

1999 Psychopoetica (UK)
2000 EOTU (Internet)

adam 4

Have a nice day —
Sheila stared dumbfounded
at the daisy wheels
in hellish torment —
she had created
a direct course to his throne —
it lies between walls
yellowed by committees.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1996

Publication

2000 EOTU (Internet)

adam 3

He is awakened by them
as the door creaks open;
blood flows thickly to his brain;
he can produce flowcharts
of God's blackjack games
typing messages
that glow with each issue.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1996

Publication

2000 EOTU (Internet)

adam 2

Reproduction strictly prohibited —
this weird form of light
pouring through the phone —
you're travelling through
the pit of your darkness —
don't let your shadow
fall on the United States.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1996

Publication

2000 EOTU (Internet)

adam 1

Hilary felt his consciousness
ebb away unseen;
every curve of her body
exuded sharp perfumes
of human genius
and several
anxious-looking children.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1996

Publication

2000 EOTU (Internet)

(f29)

using a brochure
from an animal rights groups
she swatted the wasp

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 1996

Publications

1999 Sparrow (Croatia)
2001 Haijinx (Internet)

*****
služeæi se brošurom
društva za zaštitu životinja
zgnjeèila je osu

Gerald England

translated into Croatian by Marijan Èekolj

Publication

1999 Sparrow (Croatia)

(f28)

behind the Town Hall
as the traffic lights go green
a squirrel crosses

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 10th September 1996

Publication

2011 Time Haiku (UK)

sijo 5

her colouring book was open at the picture of a ladybird;
I told her its body was red and the dots should be black
but didn't know the colour of its eyes, having never looked.

© Gerald England

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 16th August 1996

Publications

1997 Sijo West (USA)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)

On The Road

ON THE ROAD

He, bold, brassy, Geordie
She, coiffured hair,
short, white, well-creased skirt
They walk
into the small town Inn,
look at the menu
of afternoon-tea specials
Landlord - Can I help you?
She - Er, just looking!
They walk out,
come back ten minutes later.
He touches her hand
- don't want a drink - she says
He orders himself a pint of cider
They sit down at a table
He drinks
She is trying
to keep her profile low
Returning his empty glass
he asks tentatively
- actually we were looking
for somewhere to stay the night -
- Forty pounds for a double!
bellows the landlord
Regulars look up from their drink,
smile
- Er, right - say our couple
as they head for the door
We see them soon
across the market square,
he leading her by the hand
Shortly they return
He is sweating
She seems flustered
They carry designer luggage,
the same gaudy design
the hardware shop
on Finkle Street
has had in its Sale all week
They follow the landlady
lamblike
Later we find
a farmhouse B&B
for just twelve a night.

© Gerald England

Composed: Renwick, 26th July 1996

Publications

1996 Boggers All (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
2001 Mir (USA)

sijo 3

Dementia patients ramble on the freeway of her face;
being unable to besmirch the memory in her eye —
she is not a moment too soon with a big Cornish cream cheese.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 17th July 1996

Publication

2002 winterSPIN (New Zealand)

sijo 1

In the busy waiting room at the Dental Hospital
the blonde-haired receptionist is cursing the computer;
patients losing their patience have too much pain to complain.

© Gerald England

Composed: Manchester, 16th July 1996

Publications

1997 Sijo West (USA)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
2000 THE ART OF HAIKU 2000 (Hyde, New Hope International)

tanka 23

workmen on scaffolds
are still boarding up windows
blown out by the blast;
in cafés across the street
smiling office-girls eat lunch

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 2nd July 1996

Publications

1997 TOPS (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1998 NASA (USA)
2000 MIR (USA)

Five Days After The Bomb

FIVE DAYS AFTER THE BOMB

We drove up from Oxford Street
and turned into Deansgate.
It took us thirty minutes
- but didn't it always? -
In between boarded-up buildings
bright cafés and bars
were open for business
and were bustling
as office-girls in summer dresses
crossed the street
for their lunchtime sandwiches.
Workers whistled on scaffolding
and even the Police smiled.

Near the Cathedral,
a group of camera-laden tourists
were gathered for a guided tour,
but I was unprepared for the sight
as we turned into Withy Grove
and looked up Corporation Street.
It was like gazing through a window
at some scene from Bosnia or Beirut;
the now so silent debris hanging.

The traffic lights change;
we climb Shude Hill
past the dark deserted Bus Station
on the day the IRA say "sorry"
and the newspaper hoardings reply
"HOW DARE THEY SAY SORRY"
to the city that survives and smiles.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 20th June 1996

Publications

1996 The Affiliate (Canada)
1997 MYSTERY OF THE CITY (Tring, Photon Press)
1997 Cyberscribers (Internet)
1997 The Plastic Tower (USA)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)

(f26)

with each pint of tea
free talk from village yokel
in wayside café

© Gerald England

Composed: Newcastle upon Tyne, 18th May 1996

Publication

2004 Sons of Camus Writers International Journal (Canada)

42 Reviews of my Childhood

42 REVIEWS OF MY CHILDHOOD

from a roman (sic) literary review

Suckling on her womanliness to pick some interesting lines,
these poems seem over-pruned.
The combination of physical beauty that links shaking bottoms
and Christianity disappears in verbal pictures,
glimpses between images and the laughter of the Cornish Riviera.
This sixth collection concerns the nude in poetry.
The author starts by the ocean as though arguing with the tide.
playing from between mischievous cobble stones.
I cannot trap the womb.
The author is in love with what the wind takes out of Scotland.
Thumbnail sketch parodies of this hysteric journey across my memories,
perhaps its silent way will reach far into their home again.
You only get glimpses between doorways —
it is perhaps a smooth surface,
a day for little guinea-pigs
even if you can display a good thick pile carpet,
feel the children's often half-hearted intentions,
deal with indecent exposure.
An entertaining short novel
but too many letters from scenes of running home
to the laughter of hills.
They are all our children consumed by double pneumonia.
His final poem deals with mundane-seeming events,
archetypes of Doctor Who and poetic paraphrases of hills.
Such sentiments all help to gain friends in Birmingham,
shared experiences of quitting the slimming programme.
The cat sulks by the fireside;
perhaps the cheery flame dispels the moonlight.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 4th April 1996

Publications

1997 International Poetry Supplement (USA)
2005 Outlaw (UK)

(f25)

smearing the window
are marks of a twitcher's nose —
our dog bird-watching

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 2nd April 1996

Publications

1996 Pulsar (UK)
2002 World Haiku Association (Internet)
2003 Version (Internet)

*****
охотился за птицами --
по стеклу траектория
от собачего носа

Gerald England

Russian translation by Polay

Publication

2003 Version (Internet)

tanka 22

the frozen river
the ice broken in places
pigeons and ducks
fight for each piece of bread thrown
by the giddy laughing boy

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 3rd February 1996

Publications

1996 American Tanka (USA)
1997 Time Haiku (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
2001 ENGLISH TANKA & HAIKU ON WATER, RIVER, LAKE AND SEA (Gifu-city, Japan Society on Water Environment)
2004 TIME HAIKU ANTHOLOGY (London, Time Haiku Group)

(f24)

alone on the beach
suddenly — the sound of hooves —
race horses training

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 1st October 1995

Publication

1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

*****
sam na plaži —
iznenadan zvuk kopita
rasnih trkaèih konja

GERALD ENGLAND

(translated from English to Croation by Marijan Èekolj)

Publication

1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

(f23)

flu preventing sleep
she eats a bacon sandwich
while her husband snores

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 1st October 1995

Publication

1996 Sparrow (Croatia)

*****
gripa sprijeèava san
ona jede sendviè od slanine
dok suprug hrèe

GERALD ENGLAND

(translated from English to Croation by Marijan Èekolj)

Publication

1996 Sparrow (Croatia)

tanka 21

enticed by brochure
for the exclusive farm shop
we pay a visit
on seeing flies in the fridge
we exit without buying

© Gerald England

Composed: Disley, 30th September 1995

Publications

1996 Presence (UK)
1996 The Tanka Journal (Japan)

(f21)

tough Welsh cob drinking —
two swans slide in and out of
the marsh marigolds

© Gerald England

Composed: Briton Ferry, 3rd July 1995

Publications

1996 Weyfarers (UK)
1996 Target (UK)

[4x]

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th August 1995

Publication

1997 Raw NerVZ Haiku (Canada)

Clinging to the Valley

CLINGING TO THE VALLEY

screes of shale
remain where
slag-heaps rose

the machinery
and the railway line
are gone

banks of bleak homes
some boarded up
seem to slope nowhere

in the Station Café
they laugh and gossip
tell tales of holidays
and how nice it is
to get back

rain streams
relentlessly
on rows of pigeon lofts

over the mountain
where the last
driftmine
still works
life takes wing

© Gerald England

Composed: Swansea, 30th May 1995

Publications

1997 DOORS OF THE MORNING (Pittsburgh, UnMon America)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1999 Unlikely Stories (Internet)

(f22)

without a warning
men from the council just come
fell and take our tree

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 5th July 1995

Publication

1995 TOPS (UK)

(f19)

outside the X-ray
waiting patients laugh and joke
— passing matron scowls

© Gerald England

Composed: Huddersfield, 27th May 1995

Publications

1995 New Hope International Writing (UK)
1995 Lo Straniero (Italy)
1996 Sparrow (Croatia)

*****
Izvan X zraka
pacijenti se smiju i šale
— mrgodna nadzornica

GERALD ENGLAND

(translated from English to Croation by Marijan Èekolj)

Publication

1996 Sparrow (Croatia)

Brigflatts Revisited

BRIGFLATTS REVISITED

(A tanka sequence, for Mabel Ferrett)

over Widdale Fell
where the visibility
edges to zero
sheep are heard but are not seen
grazing just beyond the snow

on Sedbergh Main Street
shoppers walk over duck-boards
just to cross the road —
sat drinking in the café
we watch them lay new cobbles

turning the pages
before I sign myself in
the Visitors' Book
I note your name two weeks back
and feel your presence here still

in the Meeting House
pictures enliven bare boards
yet the air is cool —
outside it feels much warmer
though the sun is lost in mist

the burial field
a carpet of daffodils —
just like all the rest;
a round memorial stone
"Basil Bunting" and his dates

© Gerald England

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 18th April 1995

Publication

1995 BRIGGFLATTS VISITED 2nd edn (Hyde, New Hope International)

[4w]

© Gerald England

Composed: Salford, 22nd March 1995

Publications

1995 At Last (UK)
1997 Raw NerVZ Haiku (Canada)

Changing

CHANGING

He jumps and listens
 then he doesn't
  though he jumps
 down
  falling slowly
until the insides of his ears
 burn

hot tea
 without milk
  tastes good
 no need
for sweeteners after sex

in the cold night outside
 a cat is heard to scream
   as grief-riders
  race
 trying vainly
to escape
  from the flying pigs

   in the morning
all will be accounted for

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 14th March 1995

Publication

1997 Gallery Zandraat (Internet)

(f18)

walking the shoreline -
suddenly the splash of hooves
riders at sea's edge

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 1st February 1995

Publication

1997 Lateral Moves (UK)

Love After Midnight

LOVE AFTER MIDNIGHT

She had been searching
the origins of quicksilver,
wanted to know
the source of vermilion.

It was only a small itch
on the back of her neck;
she needed deft fingers
to scratch it away.

The digits that probed
didn't stop at her back
but sought out pores
along the whole of her skin.

In the midst of her climax
she forgot about Mercury,
relaxed before sleeping
having drunk a full cup.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 19th January 1995

Publications

1997 TUA Coffee Shop (Internet)
2002 Eastern Rainbow (UK)

tanka 15

a lonely farmstead
at end of a narrow track,
the vet shivering,
wind buffeting the byre door:
first moo of the new-born calf

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 11th December 1994

Publications

1996 Presence (UK)
1997 Time Haiku (UK)
2004 TIME HAIKU ANTHOLOGY (London, Time Haiku Group)

[5v]

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 4th December 1994

Publication

1997 Raw NerVZ Haiku (Canada)

(f17)

sleet at the window
armchair drawn close to leaping flames
she refills her glass

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 26th November 1994

Publication

1996 Presence (UK)

(f16)

high tops streaked with snow
driving for hours with frozen feet
hands never quite dry

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 26th November 1994

Publication

2006 Curlew

(f15)

watching "Lion King"
in the cinema which stands
where Belle Vue Zoo stood

© Gerald England

Composed: Denton, 30th October 1994

Publications

1995 TOPS (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1998 NASA(USA)
2000 MIR (USA)

(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

(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)

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)

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)

(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)

(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)

[5u]

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 5th July 1994

Publication

1997 Raw NerVZ Haiku (Canada)

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)

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

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)

[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)

[5t]

© Gerald England

Composed: Middlesbrough, 13th May 1994

Publication

1996 Iota (UK)

(f8)

branches of old trees
mark out the middle
of eroded paths

© Gerald England

Composed: Leeds, 16th April 1994

Publication

2006 Clouds Peak

(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)

[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)

(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)

(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)

(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)

[4v]

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 10th Feb 1993

Publication

2004 Raw NerVZ (Canada)

(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)

(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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

(g27)

frosty October
bumble-bee lands on windscreen
stays two miles

© Gerald England

Composed: Hyde, 18th October 1993

Publication

2006 Clouds Peak (Internet)

[4u]

© Gerald England

Composed: Hyde, 10th October 1993

Publication

2005 World Haiku Review (Internet)

October Night

OCTOBER NIGHT

the thunder-storm reaches at last ,
after hours of stillness
and seeing distant sheets
of lightning lighting up the streets

by three in the morning
a quarter-moon and sundry stars
stare from a silent sky
pierced only by a whippet's cry

too hot to sleep,
we quietly drink tea;
dip our bourbon creams
to soften shattered dreams

dawn comes with the magpie's song,
the clink of milk bottles
and the postman's knock
delivering an awakening shock

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1993

Publications

1994 Rustic Rub (UK)
1997 Gallery Zandstraat (Internet)

(g26)

in road-mender's trench
neck pressed on new-laid tarmac
sheep scratching an itch

© Gerald England

Composed: Snake Pass, 11th September 1993

Publications

1994 Potpourri (USA)
1997 Lateral Moves (UK)

Mrs. Green

The fox comes nightly to her garden;
Soft-nosed neighbours would not comprehend,
They say she should leave her hedge untrimmed:
She nods but knows she has to feed him.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 8th August 1993

Publications

1997 Gallery Zandstraat (Internet)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)

tanka 12

sheep suckle their lambs,
traffic drones on the main road -
off the Pennine Way
a lone man limps wearily -
wind whistles up from Diggle

© Gerald England

Composed: Standedge, 17th June 1993

Publication

1995 Bogg (USA)

tanka 11

tar wagon pulls in
to moor-top carpark, off-loads
two wicker baskets-
three dozen pigeon sweep out
circle twice, then head for home

© Gerald England

Composed: Standedge, 17th June 1993

Publications

1994 Indefinite Space (USA)
1998 Conspire (Internet)

What Father Did

WHAT FATHER DID

my father painted
    the toilet seat
after I'd gone to bed
    I was only six

he painted it yellow
    I wasn't to know
I cried but it was
    their laughter that hurt

Turpentine is cold
    and smells so!
He could have told
    I was only six

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Upton by Chester, 16th June 1993

Publications

1994 Green's Magazine (Canada)
1996 Q (USA)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
2005 The Spoon River Poetry Review (USA)

Victims of the Bottle

VICTIMS OF THE BOTTLE

Victims of the bottle and forecast lanterns
blushed when they heard her fingernails were refined through silk.
Emotion was implicit in holsters
slung round my friend and delightful each morning,
For a solution we bandaged them in enamel.
Examining the atmosphere was a thirsty, skinny male.
His hairs were anything but light from frosty mist
sleeping on top of Karen Finlay.
My childhood training had taught me
that I had emerged from the bottle with a short soak in former days.
I have stolen everything from the structure
which tolerated your prissy studios,
your darkness, symptomatic of the hookers.
I wasn't a furnace, contemplating the spectrum.
None of the racks of absorption are painless.
After six years he hadn't been brought back out to fall for the music.
They really didn't need illustrious visitors now,
nor would they find a Parisian lunatic asylum,
female orgasm nor the content of lesbian bodies.
The captain barks orders to take in women's nature.
My friend's urgent message of barter,
leads his helpers away from unkind dispositions.
My friend does not explain any image of sunlight and compass
with a wave about ten times faster,
thereby reinforcing the historic importance of filtering jars by another genius
resolved to implement policies ensuring the source in the "Here"
It could lead to the concepts so long now perceived
as less complete foreknowledge of reinforced cohesion,
ensuring a common footer of phallic silicone simulacrum.
The wild wolf roams ,
but this is a history of somebody determined to identify their present pledge
developed between the feminists, who make them today.
Their opposition, in effect, concerns surrogate motherhood,
longing to promote peace through credit cards.
The number of your fussy bourgeois sitters
and the phone bills -
parts of a mind-freezing mirror -.
give a watery luminescence.
Shoes were supplied on her birthday.
Lights play music, making it capture necessary exceptional regard.
I still retain, by comparison to her sultry drawl,
excellent abrading powder
which I have been getting from late-night movies.
The deepening darkness
cupped inside my revered cosmos,
grants them vitality.
It is recounted on an important-looking page marked WARNING.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 13th June 1993

Publication

1998 Target (UK)

After Afternoon

AFTER AFTERNOON

Somewhere amidst the crumbling of witches,
have you forgotten me?
Damn loud in late-night movies,
weeping into healthy apples,
drenched in order to elbow the boundaries
that be glaring under cars in the only society,
no doubt feeling you do everything she can't.
But didn't you scramble him a cigarette in the shower
before bingo took over breakfast,
somewhere amidst the little oysters?
I almost got caught in a watershed;
the silencing of toilet paper,
Momma scraping hell.
Guilt is a universe of gas.
Your warm body grew wet,
viewing this woman dreaming in surreal flicks.
Looking up you preferred the dark lipstick,
stapled her hand to butcher someone's soul.
The normal wee nude's not something that you need to call for -
just a chaingang of the information to get yourself started with the dove.
She thinks of the beauty of food.
You can't keep it from your mother!

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 13th June 1993

Publications

1994 Oasis (UK)
1997 Poetry Lounge (Internet)

(g25)

littering the beach,
debris of town's best hotel
below the landslip

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 11th June 1993

Publications

2004 Sons of Camus Writers International Journal (Canada)
2007 Ginyu (Japan)

New Louder Amen

NEW LOUDER AMEN

Real nude women mourned new ale.
Women end a rule, one mad new rule,
lead our new men -our new deal men.

Meow unlearned.
Woe emerald nun.
We lend enamour, lure new daemon, wed numeral one.

We lured one man - me a loner unwed.
One man we ruled wore dun enamel.

One mauled wren were a model nun
Nod me a new rule.

Wee annum older - new almoner due!

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 18th May 1993

Publication

1996 Boggers All

A New Demon Rules Eden Now

A NEW DEMON RULES EDEN NOW

A new male can mess around with delightful associations.
Three biorhythm curves cut on the inadequacy of Hells' Angels
wake you up although treble criticals are detailed below.
You pray for an interim identity
marked by long wet silk stockings
waved towards his passion,
but when she becomes intimate,
and I cling on top of her to scoff about Pavlovian conditioning,
they tell you he isn't unhappy,
Given something hanging from her shyness,
I'm sure the heel of time appears disguised as a variety of lava :
understand that it covers the pallid countenance of status.
What dreams may come when we have a defence policy of conviction?
Our men win a ha'penny.
I can't support child processes, she complains.
See my master's lost her poems.
Prose poems are repeatable: eulogy is just what I don't decree.
Enrol me a true nude male, a box of criticism and the chief.
Write off the encounter I've specified.
The Black-crested titmouse goes turkey in the word processor.
Harmony has always thought worthy, contemporary poetry flaccid,
Contradictory and possessing the visual aesthetics
Of a modernistic naked gentleman.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 18th May 1993

Publication

1993 Tops the Toadbird (UK)

(g24)

church coffee morning
thronged with shoppers escaping
the Saturday rain

© Gerald England

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 15th May 1993

Publications

1993 Tops The Toadbird (UK)
1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

*****
crkveno jutro
natiskano kupcima pobjeglim
od subotnje kiše

Gerald England

translated from English to Croatian by Marijan Èekolj

Publication

1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

(g23)

picturesque village
beauty blighted by litter
of house "For Sale" signs

© Gerald England

Composed: Parkgate, 8th May 1993

Publication

1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

*****
slikovito selo —
ljepota uništena šutovinom
I oznakama na kuæama za prodaju

Gerald England

translated from English to Croatian by Marijan Èekolj

Publication

1998 Sparrow (Croatia)

Letter to Joseph

LETTER TO JOSEPH

Numerous discern not double-meanings.
Poetry is confident responses
Computer programs can muddle around for twenty years!

Any good poem should give something to the hungry child
Time poses as a season-word.
All quibblers that the enchanter has not put to sleep
produce a Japanese verse form I sense is ill-fated.
A worthy poem should make cowards
of the establishment of ignorance.

Feedback of the original that kisses her literary endeavours.
becomes a declaration of solidarity with the leading question.
Personally I find the essential sentence construction pigswill
-- poems that make a misery of slumber.
I could share the law's delay,
a long time if they were comfortably settled

Turning to your letter of adversities,
blue scyllas are somewhat appalling in an ocean of poetry.
Various scrawlers execute biting remarks.
I haven't got the rules concerning
the use of reason to scrutinise a star.
I'm pleased to enhance publicity -
Joseph you did ask for a reply
toward a passionless girl who willing gives herself
It is a stance of creation that I write most of the enterprise.

I went through a cupboardful of humility. and devised
a place of importance for the fair Ophelia,
so the warm summer looks like the latest that kissed her flesh.
The tyrant is corrupt, while others be fond of arrogance;
of the thousand customary quakes.
I went to entice the fair Ophelia to intimate consummation,
Now it is time to sleep.

Fairstead's a barely significant place but I need to rest to record.
Compare the mind of the Norwich housewife,
with the cold woman who can manipulate material across sperm.
I'm not smelling Sunlight is for balance.
Today I don't take arms against a mass of masochist constructs
in the twilight by drifting snow.
Knowing why blanched honest voluptuousness
is sicklied o'er with late sixties pretensiousness,
all writers find themselves perplexed when I use
very few warnings and the fetish object of the day.

Poetic forms are twisted;
only poets can mix together several portions of naivete.
Poetry is imagining a clear perspective;
contempt of the lilac; not the nuances of vast essences;
the whips and posters; a lovesong on a memoir.
Fresh ideas and the client gets filled in the Smoke.
Flesh is the sunken bridge his quietus makes.
Many writers find the hearth-rug, in meaningful ways;
but elsewhere that weather-wise virgin
has the more fashionable hairstyle and scorns ignorance.

Stooping beneath oaken beams is an assertion of modesty.
Departing as brusquely or crudely as he kissed her,
his wife says I've been researching with a bare bodkin.
The yellow crocuses made sterile by restitution
abandon the useful bits.
Death's flower opens in the case of art forms
no less important than the rush to expose his body.

No newsreel screams with detail.
Yielding the undiscovered state,
he uses different language-forms to the giant albatross
or the insolence of the hungry child.
Discuss the manufacture of power, not exploiting place-names.
Any literature off this is stimulating and fossilises twilight.

Turning to your comment on the door --
try to emphasise giving up to include a label and a moment.
It was fun seeking to understand the ladies' hockey team!
Dear Joseph, in the bedroom
the contention is information.
The pangs of the heron are ultimately the requirement to take arms.
Haikuists live only for the moment.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 4th May 1993

Publication

2000 MIR (USA)

Poem from the Great Minds at IBM

POEM FROM THE GREAT MINDS AT I.B.M.

All opposed are outlined by the crucial determination of the minor.
You simply turn it off.
Steps are transferred from a company named Type Solutions.
A number of people don't realise that it's duplicated.
We enjoyed creating them.

I will handle the media.
A quantity of aeroplanes is required.
First try the use for a conjuring-trick in the pudding.

The sun shines on the centre of hands;
The physical devices just happen to be fun.
That is an experiment,
while the sun shines on other interesting things

Micro was a crooked cat, admiring the old data
in conjunction with the kitten's neck.
Since it is prepared to be going on,
more information is available to produce legible text.
Now you know she scrambled back
and left a penny on white bread and a Security policy.

Will he run to watch the European Parliament?
Really it depends upon the poor thing getting fat.
Half asleep, between
them the wind blows -- this end of the cow
which I'll discuss at a later stage.
They wake up at work
to say that first she has developed
the rules of romps by the bonfire.
To-morrow he is not being punished for the National Start Fiasco,
Both are hinting of the cleaning lady.
You are not static, her writing on the patio
and wooing their heads.

Lorna, stresses,
before this mind numbing loghorrea continues unabated
there you go through to be up,
but Audrey returns
rejected from my last adventure.

My left ear just cleared.
Louise says she may consider
the original outline you have a good example,
although other companies, plotted against her father.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 28th April 1993

Publication

1996 Good Fight (USA)

tanka 10

from the single track
ending at private estate
deep in Loch Striven
moored old tanker disguises
itself as a distant house

© Gerald England

Composed: Dunoon, 12th April 1993

Publication

1994 Ore (UK)

Getting Close

GETTING CLOSE

The geese do not know which way to turn
they have been circling the equator for days now
not one of them is qualified to drive the jumbo jet
and I have hijacked her dream.

The elephants have gone on strike
demanding double pay and a shorter week
while the iguanas are busy searching the dictionary
for words they can use in their defence.

She looks for others to pilot her past
the dining-room table on which a vase of daffodils
waits for the clocks to forward
the nose cone misses but the noise still shatters the glass.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 27th March 1993

Publications

1994 The Endless Mountains Review (USA)
1998 The Free Cuisenart (Internet)

[5q]

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 25th February 1993

Publications

1996 Quickenings (USA)
1996 Mobius (MI, USA)
1997 Lateral Moves (UK)

(g21)

just a single dove
atop our back garden tree
on Valentine's day

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 14th February 1993

Publications

1996 Q (USA)
1997 Stop Gap (UK)
2000 MIR (USA)
2002 World Haiku Association (Internet)
2003 Version (Internet)

*****
просто одинокий голубь
на верхушке нашего черного садового дерева
день Валентина

Russian translation by Polay

Publication

2003 Version (Internet)

*****
голубь - одна штука
на обуглившемся дереве в нашем саду
в Валентинов день

Russian translation by dh

Publication

2003 Version (Internet)

*****
стонет белый голубочек
на черном-черном дереве -
Валентинов день

Russian translation by Багджо

Publication

2003 Version (Internet)

*****
...а всего-то одинокий голубок
на верхушке чёрной яблони в саду
да Валентинов День

Russian translation by jefi-jun

Publication

2003 Version (Internet)

Starting Windows

STARTING WINDOWS

Birthday cake collapses from the end.
Compatibility rating is positive,
emotional and finds your point.
Your blind date turns out any problems you have.
You call to determine if you should follow
a group of hells angels on the mouse
whilst pointing at the tired cock.
The door tries to run FULL SCREEN.
For your convenience, take the city.
Your pet rock snaps at the pavement.
You go up and perhaps it fits better.
Electric music from the masochist
constructs a full authority
to make sure that you wish for signs
and then Bell created the end of controversy;
there is mixed response.
But I will find the icon.
Make sure you close the rules
and the requirement to separate the past
from the Windows is given you
if you want this document on the CPU.
You should conform to enhance publicity.
They know the hearth-rug,
while others the partitions of the off
to afford publicity a fifth interrupt.
I can't support you with the pudding pan.
Whither dost thou wander?
Please to see prime mainframe architecture
in that the sun was a micro soon stopped
by his wife who can say his crown
beats the competent authorities
relating to the issues such as sport,
and CANNOT POSSIBLY wait
until the program responds.
You wish you could find
my design of Christmas pie,
else fuller details of biscuits,
which leads he fears to endless meetings.

GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 29th December 1992

Publications

1993 Dada Tennis (USA)
1994 International Poetry (USA)

The Woman

THE WOMAN

She is the artist's model
hers the face, legs, breasts, arms,
curves hugging his canvas;
hues of red and blue and yellow -
three colours creating shades
as many as her moods.

She is the artist's lover
so long as his art remains
galleried in the garage,
she the provider
of inspiration and food
from her wages at the factory.

She is the artist's envoy
taking his art into the world,
dealing with dealers
putting her faith to the test
promoting a first viewing
upping the price in the public's eye.

She is the artist's history
when he forsakes her
for the glamour of the acclaim
to which she has led him
powerless to destroy the art
to which part of her belongs.

She is everybody's now
hung on walls around the world
her image peddled on postcards,
not flesh - just dried pigments
breathing the artist's life
while she remains alone, unknown.

GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 12th December 1992

Publications

1994 CLEOPTRA (Trento, Edizioni Universum)
2008 Ocho (USA)

(g19)

white bannister rail
covered with black fingermarks
children in the house

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Upton by Chester, 30th October 1992

Publication

2006 Clouds Peak (Internet)

Memoirs of Maastricht

MEMOIRS OF MAASTRICHT

This declaration shall not affect the original treaty
Establishing the seat of the war knitters.
It shall be concluded between the public's confidence
In all Allies under the purposes
Of the bad conditions the war fuelled.

ARTICLE 95 and other serious forms of languages.
The Commission shall recommend Christmas be a period free
From frosty mist - on an international scale.

The union shall adopt whatever may keep coming our way
And others can be agreed in the party but there is no magic.
Horror will come to rest.
The Member States take their own initiative regarding
Provisions relating to the news team waiting for you.

DECLARATION ON CO-OPERATION IN THE QUILT TO ENJOY GUILT
Forget your memo: At the exchange of the boss making love
To get an international business machine,
It shall consult one who walks up Europe-wide
Preventing the analogous odd couple of their administrations.

Declaration on a new reproductive intercourse.
Protocol on some contemporary writers I've mentioned makes it
Proper but different from arrows aimed at the history
Of lesbian assimilation of currency and duly taken by the
European Community to be republished as the rights activism.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 27th October 1992

Publication

1993 Mobius (WI, USA)

Mouth Rape

MOUTH RAPE

open wider
relax your lips
fighting to retain
my sanity
as hard metal
probes my insides
water pouring
into cavities
unable to scream
my tongue
desperate
to escape
i grip the sides
of the couch
think of naked
receptionists
relax your lips
open wider
i try
not to resist
to hold back
the choking
come again
soon
he says
handing me
a tissue
and smiling
through his own
white teeth

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 22nd October 1992

Publications

1993 Mobius (WI, USA)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)

Writing the Cheque

WRITING THE CHEQUE

Loneliness is a biro pen and no paper.
The power belongs to me and a guy from COMMUNITY:
I wrote back but there appeared no escape.
I borrowed another drink. Anyway, he was marooned.
The big cheese plant got its annual wash -
It looks far better for a lovely brush.
It's ridiculous to speculate.
From the national central banks came the shouts
of their salaries, pensions and the European System.
We filled in the wall in a metro-van
chasing an equivalent claim under cars
in accordance with an open market economy in treacle
and national central banks shall have the garage.
In view of the hectic routine, the bank notes,
the FINE ARTS SOCIETY is chasing
in despair from Doncaster and mobile tea-shops.
We go to Byres Rd TESCO; children are playing.
We get hamburgers - an efficient allocation of food.
We couldn't win at half past nine,
on the required minimum reserves
on accounts with piranhas scrambling.
Louise comes up but I can't say
I'm feeling turned on by chapter 8 of the treaty.
The Golden Virginia Tobacco competition results
are published tomorrow
but I am still full of loneliness.
Subject to visiting neighbours' houses and bodies,
the carpenter curls within a mile
of those claiming under the ninth floor.
Let me introduce you.
It's something that to date initiated legal proceedings
against bodies that support the thaw on northern hills,
forsaking the Governing Council,
supporting the journey's pointlessness.
Visitors go to town on the council,
in the smooth conduct of a letter.
Returning for my last advert in the impression
that matters will be resolved today.
Ah well, in the morning perhaps.
We go to town on a proposal from Doncaster
and shall act by jove - fill in 'destiny' -
my birthday going nowhere fast.
The worst of money - a bounced cheque.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 17th October, 1992

Publications

1994 Radio Void (USA)
2006 Other Voices (Internet)

(g18)

under dragon clouds
swallows swarm on their way south
- summer so soon gone

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 9th October 1992

Publications

1995 Sparrow (Croatia)
1997 Lateral Moves (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1999 NASA (USA)
2000 MIR (USA)
*****
divlji oblaci
jato lastavica put juga
- ljeto je prebrzo proslo


© Gerald England

translated into Croatian by Marijan Cekolj

Publication

1995 Sparrow (Croatia)

(g17)

on the Rannoch road
though we drive the car up close
the owl does not move

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 7th October 1992

Publications

1993 Mirrors (USA)
1995 Northwords (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1999 NASA (USA)
2000 MIR (USA)

Reply to Information

REPLY TO INFORMATION

RESOLVED to a single institutional framework,
by parallel progress in the bad:
this function allows you to restart the moon.

RESOLVED to restart the war pretty good
in the Netherlands, but nothing was working.
The guard watched him eat the chocolate cake.

DESIRING to create firm bases for some lime.
So mud sinks and before me
the grass does not grow stagnant.

RESOLVED to her sultry lips on payment systems;
a knitter dares take her on lazy afternoons;
something mysterious is annexed
to the PROTOCOL on a dog's bark.

Conference agrees that it is surely
an accidental coincidence.
Meeting in the back,
a DECLARATION on her wits is sung.

Then you being unrealistic,
he said something about overseas countries
and being profound.
We cannot find the gods!

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 4th October 1992

Publication

1993 Dial 174 (UK)