by Graham Mort
numbed hands thrust up stiffened from
their self-dug grave All this from simply
fiddling with the fusebox from fumbling
blindly in the dark! Who’s there? A
shaman a sadhu a sheister a bombshell
a barfly a lady-killing crooner a Janus
faced cruiser a queer cunt a crazy coot
the delivery guy with a pretty smart
cookie Enola Gay Fat Man Little Boy
Hiroshima Nagasaki Oh fission fusion
fission! How to choose? You peeled me
like a yam squeezed Armageddon till the
pips squeaked vaporising everything
to blind energy pure milk of darkness –
E=MC2 – Pure jazz! Everything leveled
polluted razed humanity’s house poisoned
to its half-life beyond the reach of memory
or hope that malign moment un-redeemed
your light-etched shadow fleeing its
melanoma staining the city’s ruined skin
That didn’t stop you arrest halt or faze you
it never gave you much in the way of pause
for thought now did it? War is peace death
deterrence waste disposable Now you have
your own concrete shrine your Sunday-best
sarcophagus Chernobyl’s hat tipped over a
scorpion You don’t need me to tell you how
all this could end in tears Enough now Enough
Let me soothe you by saying that I’m merely
what the eye lets in shocked off the retina
for the brain’s collation – solid edges liquid
shapes movement colours textures of hair
or skin or bark a pewter sky a sunset a
glass of Bordeaux the grey-toned rain
lulled sea steel’s chill a human voice or
face you recognise the instant it recognises
you I’m fact illusion fantasy this moment
and all time melting to anticipation retro
spection Now The way you are A million
chemical subtleties of thought that flush
into those gaps blanks interstices I linger
in then reach across to make your life worth
living to make your living life I’m the past
and its future that childhood flux your
mother’s smell of lavender talc and sweat
that lies half-kindled in memory I’m her
touch the down on her cheeks the blue
sash she wore that row of Welsh poppies
planted at the garden border I’m her dry
throat swallowing last words playing their
regrets into your ear I’m light to the touch
a conjuring trick your father’s hands
mending a broken toy halving an apple
rolling a cigarette I’m his scent of beer
and sunshine his hands pressing dock
leaves to a sting I’m his skied six volleyed
goal his tie-breaker fizzing with aces I’m
the illusion it mattered who won anything
in the end anyway I’m the afternoon of
that lost day you recall meeting a lover
when rain drizzled after a missed bus and
fog dripped from bare trees and you held
each other for the first time tangled hands
noses lips tongues made clumsy words
and love in empty rooms the bed sheets
cool to memory’s touch A vase of lilies
pale sepulchral their smell of death and
sex lingering on your fingers the way they
lingered later on the switch to bring on
lights against the night If it’s still there
still happening in your hallowed God
forsaken human head it’s happening
because I’m here to make it so I’m the
impulse of innocence the way children
stumble towards everything the way
you run to the future for solace shelter
redemption Let’s admit it – I can be a
real gobshite a charlatan an inveterate
wanker an incorrigible fraud a tight
fucker a fair-weather friend When
you die I’ll leave without regrets won’t
stop to pack or take down curtains or be
bundled with old clothes into a carrier
bag or hauled to that High Street shop
that smells of age and old folks’ piss
and stale concern I’ll simply split move
on find another gig That’s me! Can’t
sit still only out for myself I’m genesis
imagination impulse Art I’m the soft
machine the well-tempered klavier
the novel the sestina the sonnet the
nocturne the painting the human torso
lost in centuries of river mud I’m the
dance in the dancer’s head happening
only just before she parts her thighs I’m
Mnemosyne and her daughters – Manhattan
Tokyo Athens London Paris Dubai Rome –
your golden miles dazzling exciting
electrifying I’m the world as it is as it
was as it could be I’m the moment and
its after-shock If there is a future for you
then it will be mine I’m out there in that
elasticating universe (or is it shrinking or
merely changing shape?) where God is
shaking out a duster of stars stirring
that dark matter dark energy invisible
in all the space of Space I’m the human
mind on the verge of collapse the human
spirit gaseous with unspeakable joy I’m
catatonia a black dog depression freedom
and servitude I’m an eye-shining mania
the suicide’s coin rattling in the meter
his light to see the darkness by life’s
unpaid bill the surcharge the bright
Exit sign the torch of death the very
depth of life crackling in the gentian-blue
air of Earth Come closer You with so
much to learn Me with so much to teach
Come closer Only connect!
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following magazines where some of these poems first appeared: Poetry Review, Envoi, Poetry Wales, The North, The London Magazine, The Long Poem Magazine, The Rialto.
‘The Work of Water’ was commissioned by the Cumbria Floods Project and displayed in the town centre along with the work of other poets in 2010.
‘Drought’ was commissioned by the British Council Switzerland for their anthology Feeling the Pressure, 2008.
‘Electricity’ was originally commissioned as part of the Creative Scientist writing project at Belmont Arts Centre, Shrewsbury in 2001.
Also by Graham Mort
A Country On Fire
A Halifax Cider Jar
Into the Ashes
Sky Burial
Snow from the North
Circular Breathing
A Night on the Lash
Visibility: New and Selected Poems
Touch (short stories)
