Tony BakER
a difference of world
is another day,
turning
saxophone & bracken -
Taste
mists in the mouth the mush
of rotting fruit & cheapish
celery at the Co-op.
Dense fogs come
a prelude
to November nights to come.
*
she
stands on the corner with
frizzed hair fighting
glittering leaves October
booms down clean streets
*
68,000 million
gallons of rain fell
on the N.E.
yesterday."
today &
today &
-scaffolding collapsing
in a sudden
gust
in the yard a
shining wind.
*
rose hip hard gripping
my fingers hunger
to bite change so
obviously uncertain of how my life
forms firm clouds fruits yet
somehow this berry
rubbing my thumbpad's sweet
as a nipple's
responsive skin
*
*
long man
(dug from Jaquetta Hawkes)
off the whole hill
and west,
the traveller
curves round to flow
into the solent,
the true
boundary
(corres-
ponding
to a
broken expanse
*
who is this man
whose facets multiply
look each way
a fly's compound eye
*
arriving early on Bond St.
I sat and read alchemy: "the
removal of rust
or tarnish" -
like she said
to her friend (me
crushed next to them on the tube) 'just
get over today
& it's
downhill all way to Friday'
*
(for Tim)
in your drawing of your brother
has crooked eyes mouth fingers make
a kind of helicopter metalwork
which I'd never have
possible to grasp
that frenzied daisies do
spring up just about anywhere where
raw lawns are
uncalled for, making
each act dancelike
in the need of being done.
*
Or:
dunlin
arc in over mud,
alight
& be reminded
picking samphire
on the essex coast:
Nor disquieted
at being altered
since -
"flight"
is no metaphor
but the shore
we're anchored in.
*
*
is another day,
turning
saxophone & bracken -
Taste
mists in the mouth the mush
of rotting fruit & cheapish
celery at the Co-op.
Dense fogs come
a prelude
to November nights to come.
*
she
stands on the corner with
frizzed hair fighting
glittering leaves October
booms down clean streets
*
68,000 million
gallons of rain fell
on the N.E.
yesterday."
today &
today &
-scaffolding collapsing
in a sudden
gust
in the yard a
shining wind.
*
rose hip hard gripping
my fingers hunger
to bite change so
obviously uncertain of how my life
forms firm clouds fruits yet
somehow this berry
rubbing my thumbpad's sweet
as a nipple's
responsive skin
*
*
long man
(dug from Jaquetta Hawkes)
off the whole hill
and west,
the traveller
curves round to flow
into the solent,
the true
boundary
(corres-
ponding
to a
broken expanse
*
who is this man
whose facets multiply
look each way
a fly's compound eye
*
arriving early on Bond St.
I sat and read alchemy: "the
removal of rust
or tarnish" -
like she said
to her friend (me
crushed next to them on the tube) 'just
get over today
& it's
downhill all way to Friday'
*
(for Tim)
in your drawing of your brother
has crooked eyes mouth fingers make
a kind of helicopter metalwork
which I'd never have
possible to grasp
that frenzied daisies do
spring up just about anywhere where
raw lawns are
uncalled for, making
each act dancelike
in the need of being done.
*
Or:
dunlin
arc in over mud,
alight
& be reminded
picking samphire
on the essex coast:
Nor disquieted
at being altered
since -
"flight"
is no metaphor
but the shore
we're anchored in.
*
*
Copyright © Tony Baker 1982
Tony Baker contributed to both the print issues of Molly Bloom, 1980 and 1982, and to the first online issue. He contributed a memoir on Roy Fisher to Molly Bloom’s special tribute edition in 2017. Publications include Scrins (Pig Press), In Transit (Reality Street), and Monksnailsongs (Wild Honey), a collaboration with Richard Caddel. He has lived since 1995 in France, where he works as a musician.