Four Poems

Maurice Scully




FALLAI LUIMNI: TREE WITH EGGS

High speed collisions of tiny ideas
in yr bubble chamber tonight. Give
over: stay blank.

Blank


Through the glass of yr beautiful
cloud chamber this evening, moist air.
Moist air. Hop, skip, reminisce. Agus

a haon, dó, trí.


this is a day.
this is a moment
in a day. this
is the point of

intersection of
a moment in a day.
this is its noise.
this is a series

of flashes. this
is a further series
bled into crevices
and burnt back on

to each other – like
that. crackling
densities: one view-
point wedged into


/ …


another and stuck on
a plinth: Hang On A
Sec/I’ll Get It. yr
name ah yr name yr

sweet sweet name all
those small vowels
nestling among tough
consonants chipped

and gnarled those
pools of isolation
among rock – hello –
what? what? hello?

this is an ikon.
this is the way
that it shimmers.
this is its surface.

this is that sur-
face split open where
each split blisters
& each blister figures

a little as it were
canyon seen from above –
far – human limitation –
(limitation limitation)

gimme those Human
Limitation Blues –
delve down then into
its jagged cracks –


/ …

shadows – spikes –
splinters – delight –
process. these are
the bits that stick.

this is its music –
its music – this &
then this.

I put the book down.
here we are. that’s
the storm. listen
it into you.

it blooms. cascades.
thank it. I do. &
picked a hammer up –
tap-tap – thinking –

watching – as the Nail.
Goes. In. one little
plank meets another.
& fits. do come round

again this evening,
won’t you?



Not so good to wake pre-dawn though, a
pain in yr jaw, yr prostate, yr head
& a band of worries following in a gaggle

behind until you cancel them to catch
the geese mutter-gurgling overhead on
their flight to the coast for breakfast


/ …

& the day’s feast bringing in their wake
through connected flexible threads somehow
bright white warm light, to heal & balm
& quiet.

And consternation too. So.
Twirl, Fizzle.
Hi!



THORNS SPINDLES TWIGS

flickering over the
water-paper surface …
ah!

here we
see a monk
dip
dab
tip
delineate
in a mountain-
top temple

twisting
ripples
spills
down in-
to an eroded rockpool –

black –

piping
distinct
ly through

clear air now
echoing now

disappearing
into a breeze

now back
in a different key –

/ …


here you are
in a shed in a garden
in the cold wondering what’s
the next
move

(in a trap)

here he is reviewing his life
chuckling/snarling
letting the pen drop – cheese! –

magpie on tree-tip:

bal.
an.
cing.

talk to me
in the clear passing/
real things again
now
push the ferry

out push
sorting & storing
pebbles
road tar
blue after rain

blue sheen of
the dew of heaven
skeleton of light
in a


/ …

leaf
twisting
on
a
stem
touched

moves/d again
slight gash top
left-hand/otherwise
near
fine.

lay the space bare where you can. work.

the cypress the yew &
the pine all
move

differently in the same
wind. locked
into

the anthill, the Normal Routine,
carrying yr fleck
in a

tunnel you wake, dreaming. a long
time. after-
wards

outside (always afterwards, The Outside)
a still dawn
a still


/ …


quiet dawn; stillness, ever-remembered
fore-forwarned
star of

mica/gull turning; did that
small wave
catch

a moment then breathe back into
its sister move
then?

& then/in the grammar. braille-
touched, the side of.
tangled.

if that’s a calculation this is a
stone wearing the air
away.

draw back …

this then audibly

untouch, touch, wings,
map-map, count then
hibernate then track

/ …

blizzard
immense
this
then
possible

the becomes inconceivable the when
mind the in acceleration terrific a

.

put cup down
it rings
when I lift it
up down again
a song


.


[HUNGARIAN] FOLK DANCE:
ARTIST’S STUDIO

That job application
returned unopened
with a covering letter
thanking you for yr interest
and wishing you every
success in yr future
career Gaudate Deum
close window close it
tight (well) with finality
and panache you know
how it is in the Temple of
Echoes of Work Once Done
and return to the main case …

Symbol-evolving pattern-
obsessed idealistic creature
of cruelty and kindness in the
frustrating chaotic illogical
fantastic meaningless muck of
life you … stop and cede to
close window and return
to main page.

Strike a match, hold it steady,
things ignite the way you say
day goes into night, twist that
and match even if things are not
what they seem then close window
to return to main phase.

/ …


Look, mark it with yr pen,
the calendar says the 27th,
dot dot, a glint, in series,
in eternity, a tiny life –
look up – cold, heat, light –
that tendril following sun
through air rippled around a
stick thinking tra-la beyond thought …

seems to read the blurred
print on the back of the
packet on the table amid
the racket.

In reading something about
a “linguistic event” I spotted
a misprint and went to pencil
it in but pencilled the same
word a line below by mistake
(in which that word was not
a misprint) – is that a linguistic
event or just a snippet from
a drifter’s ballet? Bullet
snug in its chamber, quiet.

Is blazoned on the back
of the packet on the table.
Stir the soup, tug the cable.

Did Goethe privilege a grand
bourgeois outlook and combine
it with an art which cosmetically
screens out the wrinkles of reality?
I wonder, shaving this morning,
moonlight a delight, but red
a warning.

/ …


Is streaming down the side
of the packet. A million
things happen at once. Can
you hack it? Dogs barking …

Which brings us round again –
gents step forward as the ladies
fall back – to that job application
returned unopened this morning
thanking you for yr interest &
wishing you every success in yr
future career tra-la not so much
that you’ve just arrived (tra-la)
but that you’ll never get there.
Tra La.

So there.

‘Bye-bye.


BUTOH: COUP DE SOLEIL

a small house built by an artist
on two levels hidden among trees
on a hill where birds peck under
a larch & a fly stops on a stone

grooming/nature we call it nature
we say nature & her tripled x-rays
& tiny bones in flight wrapped
round protected enfolded &

difficult to concentrate what’s
that a beat then a what slash sound
of/slash/traffic on wet streets
outside. stop. question. cope.

woke on a planet of echo woke
shaken woke amazed woke ready
to rework all of the preceding
woke on edge woke desperate woke

in visible light hitting a city in
parts a bright bit CV descending
round a core lens deft & around
again at 53 makes sense degrees

if nothing else does
older
now go see understanding
nature’s laws the trees

( ) ( )


/ …

that

stand tiptoe as it
were on their claws
tiptoe!

[space illegible]

in what could be

called a descending a
stepped hill a revolving
glass door at its base

shadowy figure must
get past (through) re
volves dangerously but
(wake triumphant)

a series of
meshes of which
yr body is
one (success)
heart pounding

called life
(it could be
called life)

eerie crisp leaflets
in the half-light
nesting/smack on the
cheek/a train past

advertisements for
toothpaste insurance
alcohol flat & wide
4 ways to be right


/ …


5 to be wrong -
pods veins curves/
flash/enters the
under-

street here we are
at the base of the
alveolar ridge in debt
sheltering nature

across a deserted
piazza (& ghosts over
what appears there
moving Hi I’m Miro

wing-commander Miro
haven’t we met?) &
the tripled x-rays
& the birds peck

& the semi-visible
float fast into each
other this way &
that laughing

oh ha-a-a-a-appy day!

to orbit around
the steep liquid spine of
the
river
(so
& so)
through
a
series
of
meshes


/ …

of
which
yr
body
is
one

s
p
i
n
d
l
e

c
r
y
s
t
a
l

i
n

t
h
e

l
i
g
h
t

.

s
u
n

. / …


a pebble
on a soapstone
dish beside
an acorn cup
its thin veins
between a/open to
a/a split a
shadowed
in a hollow
a slit cur[v]ling
back to its
top side
up
size of a
small bird’s
egg
cool in yr
palm