Tuesday, June 25, 2013

text || Lawrence Upton



B.V.M.
Homage to Dziga Vertov


scattered spots of blood; an exploded snake; a rabbit jumping out of a hat; a departing train; a single note on a trumpet or is it a synthesizer? a tangled web; a hand-operated meat mincer; a man threatening to turn into an icy pond; a pair of tights; an upside down exclamation mark; a dramatic pose; a squiggle on the floor; a poetic theory; a line of chat; a winning smile; a little boy lost; a dinner for two; a girl and a boy; a picture of domestic bliss; screws driven into the floor with a hammer; unpardonable tension; a man playing a xylophone; a chrysanthemum; cascade of characterisation in the middle of the pub, spot on; creature of habitual hatred gambolling...
a pyjama top; the man in this picture looks terribly Jewish; a pair of sneakers; a nail driven through a broken floorboard; a woman on the phone screaming; a stretch of salt marsh protected by international agreement; a barrister talking bollocks; a sweaty sock; a chequered flag; an Australian twang; a shopping arcade; if you see fire or smoke...
do not take any risks; a speck of dust on a broken window; I am so tired, darling; your smiling face; my smiling face; a railroad line up the side of the hill from Jericho Valley; Duty Free is even freer in the air; an ink stain on my inner thigh; a fat man in a suit; an ice cream cone; all the pebbles which are blue upon this beach; a fish: a herring, a mackerel sky; a man smoking a pipe...
you can drive round and round for hours without ever finding a parking meter; a gale, an open door, two eyes in a winter month; a mass of turpentine...
screwdrivers fanned out on a coffee table; a man playing chess against a computer against a tree; the kind of move a tree makes in a wind; the populace in general; polite conversation; steel girders; patricide; pastry cutters; a man getting off a moving train; water splashing into a handsome jug; a pea souper; the chef of the day; a dead cicada being eaten by ants; a dead cicada exploding; a dead cicada being washed ashore; a dead cicada falling like snow; a dead cicada reading braille; a dead cicada pushing open the curtains; a pack of brewer's yeast; an assignation with a whimpering man; comb binders; salt spray; steep hills; ten past twelve; grass; wind; metabolic disturbance; a field full of ampersands; a cat killed, stuffed and set up to look like a galleon in full sail; a bird-cage going cheap; a drowned valley; my oldest friend; packets of flower seeds; all the kings horses and all the kings men; you'd better bet your life; this is the most important thing I've ever said; it's gone; tenacious precision; a smiling face, a serious face; I love you, I really do; I can't, I can't, an open door; a ruling verb; a phallocentric forest; an enlightened clearing; an unassuming echo of the assumption of the Virgin Mary on a hillside outside Sarajevo; a train stopping between stations; a man with a dustbin; a runabout van; an inexplicable stoppage; release of air brakes; capture of the chief accountant; a bullshit directive; a fool; a tumble in the hay; a poem on the hob; a kettle in the ear; skittishness, tares before bedtime; kisses in particular...
two groups of four and a plenary discussion; catty discourse; splinters of glass; repetition of a mantra; kaleidoscope of dolours; reality; precision engineering; exactitude engineering; plenitude engineering; hand cream and ear wax; pointless ambition; polities of essence; Oil of Ulay; extremes of caution; clarity of fever; edges of caution; The Sunday Times; Treasure Island; Old Coulsdon; Purley train crash; a windy field; the sight of a windmill; a balloon burning; a finicky boy; Barrack Room Ballads; bobbles; parrot cages; allegiance to the flag; a squadron of ideals; bogus salespersons; flagships, precis, houses, curtains, pages, pains; planks of wood; going home; give me your hand; a hot breath in my right ear blown hard and then your tongue inserted; how do you do? a mission of mercy; a career; human skin covered in mud that's been scraped at; beer; barrels of oil; crisis in the city; the edge of the country; I have no nationality; artificial divisiveness; incremental sinning; baring concepts; formulaic response; a change in potential you; can do it; an ant upon a leaf; green thoughts in a dining room; menage a trois; the Peruvian government; some hope; faith and charity; games and jokes; a sign of the times; five o clock shadow; an eclipse of the sun; Quaker Meeting House, Brigg Flats; fourth wall convention, the shape of things to come; a menu, a recipe, a recipe for disaster; a frustration that we all share; the cost of housing; ball bearings; Highway Sixty One Revisited; silver tongue in a wobbly mouth; a loose tooth; a false move; a wooden leg; a dry lake; a pinch of salt; a tuck in time; Steve Biko; trespassers ought to be prosecuted; Sunset over Battersea; the way down; Come all ye faithful; prolong the agony; an ear of hate; glass fibre; practical tuition; solo gazelles; fiction and friction in Viennese society in the late 1850s; positive recrimination; slower, slower; don't come yet I'm not ready; I'm not even dressed; the mirror is clouded; looks like rain; leaves of a rare tree; fat in the fire; heart in the mouth; bowels in a trough; applause; make away; anchors; cotter pin; pottery classes; chinks in the armour; chinks in the amor; my love is like a reddened rose; full speed a head; can you hear me; read the bulletin; don't you touch me; all I can say is; all I can say; what do I care; I care; I care no less than you care; the brink of the abyss; a bit of moss; twenty starlings in a bush


Author's note: This piece was written September - November 1992, revised February 1994 and read at Sub Voicive Poetry that month. It was published with very slight adjustments by Call this poetry in 1996 in a pamphlet which has been out of print for years. I put it on my web site around 1998 with some slight changes to layout. It was still not right, but I gave it the cold shoulder. In June 2013, I revised the punctuation and layout, using approaches I have used in recent years; I removed the older version from my website. This version is nearer to a notation than was the earlier version; in the earlier version one performed somewhat against the layout.
The dedication to Vertov was always part of it and is usually mentioned in readings; but it has not appeared in print before due to an oversight.
I should say that the final phrase was stolen from Peter Riley
Copyright © Lawrence Upton 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2013!

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