Sunday, 4 September 2022

Five Poems by Clive Gresswell



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i sing in career (korea)

at opera

drenched to my bones

in such oily fish

and she won’t see me

in my carpet of gold

the ink substance

seeps thru my veins

i am half yours in

theory but we both know

it will go in a flash

& all that will be

is memories of the flesh

plus its spilt-blood of christ-water.

 

in lives entwined

then visited once again

 

as stones to silent rumours

a golden chain of command

seeps thru his ears

as if any of it mattered

what he wrote and didn’t write

it’s all decay in the end

in the end it’s all decay

withering and dwindling

like the hungry fox

who blemishing his

records

by turning a soldier

in the year before they met

in kansas

and then later he drew breath

at her & asked her to leave

move another one in

his old heart beating like an ox

time moved on

time stood still.

he was an angel

but also a broken memory.

 

 

in memory of sean bonney

 

the sentence listed

against the plain wall

previously that was

not now

now it says your money kills

and

i would like some too.

 

not death sean

 

the day moves towards its zenith

while there is hardly anyone left

the clock on the station wall

says it is noon local time

birds fly high thru station’s balcony.

 

in the blink of an eye

the travellers have gone

about their busy ways

and pierre takes out

his golden pocket watch

 

presented by the railway

company to its 100th customer

this afternoon he is going to pawn it

while still hoping anxiously

next week

he can get it back again


 

meanwhile

 

the silence of the black and white film

is choking him

 

he needs to get out for some fresh air

& watches the flying fish

and tries to tempt them with bread

even though hunger presses in

and throws him to the ground.

 


# Untitled

 

the lark its hopes

dashed upon brigg hill

it screams across the drawing-room claws: its yellow teeth

its stinking breath

and fortunes wasted on drink.

 

and half-crazy women

but the cuts do not show

they disperse on the wind

with the mounting notes

of her singing.

 


# Untitled

 

judge’s riddles in plaster-cast moons

tracing

steps of wounded soldiers

fresh & bloody from battles

beyond  the corner wall

to the corner gate

their melting pleas fall on deaf ears

rattling drums/rattlesnakes

(all)

circled by banker’s drums

crashing into death’s headlines

the breaking waves: such gentle wars.

 

 

# Untitled


time & skies blue lock

faultless jaybirds

swooping on derelict avenues

they, desperate, stink of the rich

fleshlings in a void

such homeless a number

imagined as in millions

glass howls at bellowing poverty

then shatters epileptic

as boris johnson-kind don robot suits

head for the coal mines

(where it all began maggie).

now ‘tis shelter.

 

in everyday tongue screams

the professor

whose illegitimate claims

to an oxford chair

disembowelled a cancer chain

X  marks this spot where folklore blood was

& among creeping vines

& such graffiti as

the 21st century can muster

                                                    lies the piss & shit

                                                     the human belly of hunger. 

 

Clive Gresswell, 64, is an innovative writer and poet from Luton, Bedfordshire, UK. He has released five poetry books and has been published in numerous magazines including Stride, The International Times, BlazeVOX, Poetry Wars, Tears in the Fence, LondonGRIP, Marble Poetry, New Note Poetry, Ill pip, Otoliths, Miracle, 360-Degrees, Dead Snakes Poetry, MaCormick's Dead Typewriter, Clod Magazine, aglimposeof.net, ZombieLOGIC and many more.

Clive, a former journalist, has an MA in poetry and a Creative Writing BA (First Class) obtained as a mature university student.

 

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