poem || Jeff Harrison

The John Milton of Charles Henri Ford‏

Over Eden to receive Their names of thee
Over many a tract Of Heav'n

Over sovran Reason claim'd Superior sway
Over this Lethean Sound

Over all the Plain, and wider far
Over equals to let Reign

Over their heads a crystal Firmament
Over lands with mutual wing easing their flight

Over the foaming deep high Archt, a bridge
Over this Gulf Impassable

Over the vast abrupt
Over all with unsucceeded power

Over all the face of Earth
Over his head beholds a dewy cloud

Over Adria to th' Hesperian Fields  
Over these a Mercy-seat of Gold

Over thy head return
Over the vext Abyss

Over free Reason
Over them triumphant Death his dart shook

Over all other creatures that possess Earth
Over the snowy plains

Over all his works
Over Heav'n inducing darkness --

wave, wave

text || Lawrence Upton

We cannot survive

polyvocal

possessions under grey sky

the earth seen he says wiping his mouth

it isn't a question

can't see through the volume

turned down at a screen

turning sighing

and gathering together they could hear voices

when he gets out

leaving little pieces

but she gets them

there

where you would be

that is something

beyond this frame out there

nothing

calm and whiteness

returns the light

in the real

he looks up from fires

all blown away

peripheral vision collected males

heedlessly accept the laws

push into another room

shake hands with your own media

anything at the end of the skull sometimes looks out

sometimes muddle each other up

something very important laughs

intoxicated

the face of the picture of the frame

pushes into another out of phase

it looks as if you would expect silence

hear voices when he gets them all

shiny steps to a considerable question

different in that world

 sunlight is replaced

there are variations

blushes bushing

semblance on semblance

slipping the top of the skull you look for summer

frame pushes into the analog night

frustrating

prefer reality

and that is strange

the floor

some space all around

it may be grown

it is

rolled along reconstituting memory

the beatific dead combining themselves

in agreeable sounds and observations

one makes the situation he says

he says vandalism

and then fabricates

blowing away movement of air

blasting us all without going out and does not focus

sunlight is replaced again

lights come on to it

difficult living here

the original nothing

we're projections

one makes the situation

he says

the television a man

I don't want to die

the organ of sight does not glare

the eye

invisible in a small rectangle

there

all the same

he talks of the frame

but out of place

and regards me as if deliberately made

but various

each knot with its own little detail

i see an injury in space

and see its trail

we cannot survive

text || Lawrence Upton

A tissue

[ | indicates a gesture – | within a line indicates that the performer gestures whilst continuing utterance; | on a line of its own indicates some kind of major demonstrativeness and perhaps some razzamatazz]

called cock in its crowded wet

horrible old empty-face

that aged burst into this normative man

any actor asked him and fell

was rushed into the damp

not the whole company

burnt beautiful, the beloved, private magazine to prepare

the bell as | the worst | balance

your finger | miseries

the doorbell | a kind or category of nightmare

sparkling prisoners her long awaited guests

sparkling princess

everything out of my life

how can it be learnt

with her friendship

not touching me

with a telephone

the task of a grief

your leg muscles damaged

choking

huddled up into a

ruining

of the body of the prince

your face in these parts

as soon as

to go back to

to get back

the make-up

had recurred

and started

and almost

and changed

from the

when the

her story

do you want to hear it?

the other things laughed

I shall need the typewriter beautiful today

she said

she put eggs into houses

released from a whole section

a secret flicker of this situation

cut off at a button | that alone

very quickly | blue-eyed

ground him | grounded him | downed

full of people | like the wind

in the morning crush

|

my husband | started

I had no further adventures that's when it | hissed

|

humiliating | screaming | sexuality

|

pushed him | on to the floor

|

all women's shoes

|

twisted | all getting experience

|

I can remember

|

our last | few words

|

a gloved hand | into the show like

between my legs | identical | alone

|

I dreamed of

|

no wonder | he was quite a celebrity | collecting signatures

|

 it was quite | a bitch | a suitable object

melancholy | in being a | gliding

|

its motor had started

|

he lit a cigarette | give me one impregnation

|

and entered an animated face | radiated

cautiously arrived at the desert

the high street has been obliterated

he made his fear | becoming cold with it

it tilled his inner ear(s) and brought forth blossom

|

sticky | accomplishing nothing

|

in order to cut all such sound from his accreting memory

accretive?

both views | binding a view conducting it

the whole situation | it's partial

highly placed | and still yours | always | closer

just now experienced

immense forces | close to the sun

|

fading into dark red | but no further

malformed shapes

|

which was not the presence of matter | around him

around him | but its absence

|

choked in | this time | and its immense vacuity

he realised he couldn't it was disastrous

the frail tall oak

she walked round them scornfully

and he was wondering at them all sitting there

to be pointed by the news

ground was strange ground for him

it was a shock hearing his own voice

then actually laughing

it must be taped

the window was a wound

if you stood on the edges of the whole panorama with your hands gesturing intimidations

his boy was beginning to read as the phone rang

the footpath flowed with long grass which was so crossed by animal tracks it reminded him of a mosaic

time was unbearable for him to contemplate | he laughed