ice cream sinking in the reservoir

pain:ice cream:water:reach:primate:cheep

the descent of these chords

the clamour of grouse

a new man hits the street

a New Man

born in 1780 dressed almost as mollies

by parents who loved to inexcess tabac

he stumbles sudden all sudden of a sudden

in his southern den smoky as physic

why he cries why this is not religion it is

nothing more than the carrying of battlements

have I will of it none un-

-yet his mother his erstwhile and eggplant mother sidle

in his rear ear

oh oh aloud he shouteth how my mollyhood has challenges

my dandyweft was worked I confess

only now will I roost back in the rut

with such wild words and channels

he alights in the stead of his father

snugs there as chicks barely lofted

this, she whispers then: this, I meant

.

postcards from vacuums of delight

night stoops black/blue like falcons, like Superman's hair

smashing doves from the forest sky

the ashtray is your snout

you thing of clay and fire

would you like one of these tablets?

your leg is an oak tree trembling

your back is some sort of ocean fret

your hair is a vast spider taking off

never to

feel again the launch

of our shuttle and shuffle

our shining catch at morning

my best friend

the time weaves on

I am cutting our cords

you and me rise over the hedgerows

caught in sudden lifts, wet

caught bright like stars, scraps of web

that drift apart in the early dawn

you worry that I am a spaceman sent outside

drifting off open-mouthed into the endless empty blue

maybe I am

I will try not to be

but I can't help sending back

signals

from these new strange worlds

wish you were here

.

Solaris soundtrack by Alice Trueman

Find more Alice Trueman Soundtracks songs at Myspace Music

of bakers and strangers

I only believe in the god

that gives wild snowstorms

a man awoke in the far east

he left his house early

and jumped into a river from a high bridge

he swam around a little

in his best clothes

then went home all wet

snuck into bed

his wife turned over and reached for him

ugh she said

you're all wet

yeah baby he said

I have come from the sky

for three days they made love

without interruption

until eventually she wanted cake

I want cake, she said

I can make cake, he said

out of my eyes

watch this

she watched for a while just in case

they are invisible and wild cakes, he said

okay, she said

then this is an invisible and wild fuck

and it's all you will ever get

until you bring me cake

he went out early that morning seeking cake

but no one in that land had cake

he sailed on ships purporting to be headed

for the lands of cake

but no cake found he

only a tiny morsel

which he kept about him

at last he came home

and found his wife with the baker from next door

my wife, he cried, how and why?

oh fuck off she said, didn't want

that lousy eastern cake anyway

and you are insane and a control freak

and my Relate counsellor says get the fuck outta there

all night by the river he squatted

chewing upon his morsel and pondering

at dawn he arose with fury

and burst into the house

he threw the baker into the river

and turned then upon his wife

evil woman, he cried

I have sought cake in many lands

all the while you have baked yourself

in the arms of bakers and strangers

give me she says

that last piece

and all will be well

he hands it over

the sun comes up

everyone leaves houses and goes to work

the trees drop conkers

all is well

he sits watching reality TV

sucking on his last crumb

living at last really living

the wild life

.

snails that eat pigeons in the margins of night

there is a sort of explosion

and his hand glides down in a snowstorm

of pixels

now he knows

as though looking through a telescope

that suddenly made everything jump

larger and larger

that the world is just a vat full of pigeons

all of them shouting for more

he gives them more

he stands on the parapet

whirling

sliding off his pants

brrrrr they holler

his disaster takes a new turn

he wakes at sunrise with a snail in his mouth

he turns over

where's the ashtray he asks

it's on your side, she says

oh okay, he says

flailing for it

utterly in love now with snails

.

computer virus

curtains blowing in

I opened the door ten minutes ago

but no one was there

I wondered what just came in

the children stirred for a moment

in their bunks

then went back

to their sleepy contortions

.

1001 hummingfish dreaming the same dream

that particular position

lying foetally on your side

face into a breast

her arm around your neck

as though gathering in an infant

has some difficult attachments

it is easier and more expansive

to do the reverse

I should challenge myself more

should always lie like this

with my inflatable doll

it's a lifelike thing

cost me £500 from a sex shop

three realistic orifices

real hair

it's almost like being in love

love, anyway, is only that hill of beans

looming over a town in Interzone

a man with a gun kicking the door open

when the writer loses the plot

or a hand on a stomach during sleep

that makes the sleeper flinch

then sigh

and descend into dreams of pigeons

suddenly released

each carrying a message

to a distant home

he was big and blonde like a football coach

250 pounds at least

brought down a little by the liquor

his face was jumping

I didn't much want to get squashed

we are closed, I said

keeping the desk between me and him

most hummingbirds don't make it over the Gulf of Mexico

when there are gales

imagine that sea full of drowning little birds

thousands at a time

humming as they die

the sea reaching up, pulling them in

large predatory fish gathering

pop pop pop

humming there in your fishbelly

a hand stroking across

there in the sinking

oh yeah

never wanted to get where I was going with that anyway

these are the strange origins of flying fish

may I now live for another day, O great Caliph?

.

terminal velocity

as though the quilt was a sea monster

he pulls up his feet in sleep, attempting escape

a strange air enters him

he dreams of his ex-wife

he whimpers and thrashes

some chemical is missing, some neuro-transmission

that prevents men from acting

their dreams

he wakes suddenly with a broken toe

all of the imagery draining out of him

like a party of drunken boys

ripped from a ruptured airliner

their sad songs failing

as they fall

clutching at each other

one of them shouting finally

a hundred metres before they land

heck of a party boys

I'm buying the first round in Hell

oomph

eighteen small depressions in a field

near Blackburn Lancashire

.

if then some such turnipheads of supernature

late at night up where the wolf-blossom
sends pheromones beyond belief

late at night where the blossom-wolf up-
sends pheromones beyond belief

late at the room the water the orchids the possibility
of trans-special birth (mama)

I mean the sluice, the juice, the let loose

the water the ash the finality
oh but outside [scry'd]

outside the air

what about these were-stinging wasps this year?

my wild litl boy putted his wild foot in a nest got stung
all over of the scalpic integumento

I was there I woulda had bad-batted them offed with no thought
to safety or honour otherways

such dignified as I am and wading of the heft
like a giant wrestling pinked-out fen-demons

the wide white rides uppa oh the subshine bra-caking
all down the interfay of blurry interstices

his hefty hand down there his/her demon hand
there at the oak-wefted door
fire demon fire-fretting the only-rafters at their rafting

boys, wild boys like boy-rats heathered in from the fen
there by the sidefire glint silent-holed slinting they
wade through batting and aside such trite and triter
shadows and shades and overshades and glades of clades
lofted as the ill balloons of gutted and outer waxicades

.

what do they call that bounce?

all the ittybitty and brandnew the irritation
I have collapsed he says collapsing
not yet technically she says before he hits the floor
all is a dream he cries a dream in which sheep eat the world
you she says eyeful are calling me a sheepgoat
no no I never I suppose I may but really it was
an indication of the foullest weather to come
the weather to come the weather the weather to come
shut up and let your head hit finally the tiles she says
watching him descend but he slows he slows like non-falling sloes
oh god she says tugging wild at her nose
you are all as uncoiling as a firehose
yes he says now in slowmotion my heart has unwound
would you consider
no she says
not even with your brother
or your two-tailed ocelot for much money
okay he says just had to know for my mother
then it hits the tiles and blows without sound
not much glossalot more matte not funny this irruption
into the other which really occurs as a flow underground

what do they call that bounce?

.

cinnabar

disturbed by dogs or dodgems dislodged from dreams
a little black dress
of a day-flying moth lodged between
marram spikes—red and black
or red and pink she was too flighty
to fix and soon flew
with wild uawks
out over the sea

.

an beatific incident at a petshop or pet shop, of late

red wine seeds behest at womb temperature—Madeleine Shine

the cat has large outer paddles of which
one is inserted by urgent pliantists
into the bars or space bars
whereupon a VAST parakeet bitch biteth off

one such oar or more
leaving such mere stumpage and pump-outage
as a whirling unstumped tripedalled fellitrix
might mump in a panic
its whiskers feeling their extraneities of amplitude
in one quarter dis-tressed one channel closed and inuded

she re-sorts to the toothback module and attacks
both attacks and abacks if such a thing
doth ring awhile the para-keet which is further
*develope* than keet mere keet
she/he laughs and trusts to the bars but the bars are rigged

by the avid pliantists they are lowly sugar or nougat
like Hollywood glass and the feelycat-wild breaks in
all eyes agape and outer toothcome
now so sad so sad

is nurture's outway
the cataster its own dying face-up of vile throaty feather-fret
but such is the click clock way
of the fervid giant pliantist

its great wings already broken, collapsed
all of it just breathing
there on the wild floor

.

Have to introduce this as I haven't posted other people's stuff here before. It is literally an email from my good mate Dave Mehler the current editor of Triggerfish Critical Review. He is or was or is sometimes a trucker. He seems to have it in his soul anyway. This was just an email and not a poem, but it just shows just how poetic and real someone can become.

email from Dave Mehler

too bad you can't ride through the Siskiyous with me--Truckers talk about their butts puckering up, meaning sucking the seat up their ass on a hairy pass. I ran around Colorado (the worst were Wolf Creek, Rabbit Ears, Red Mountain and Berthoud)-- Wyoming where the cross wind pushes you sideways on the highway over blowing snow which turns to ice, Montana, Idaho and Washington, but the Oregon/California border has the Siskiyous--you'd like riding that one with me fully loaded--I think it might generate a poem for you. The worst thing is getting cocky when you think you know your truck and your ability to judge what the weather is doing to the road, but you're wrong. It's the young truckers with just a little experience under their belt that are the most dangerous. Trucks still use the runaway ramps, because the drivers are fucking idiots, not due to mechanical failure. Brakes start smoking and can catch on fire if they get hot enough. Aluminum trailers go up fast. I've seen rigs on fire and on their sides. loads in the middle of highways because they were lost on curves or not strapped down well or even trucks laid over on offramps taken too fast. I used to train drivers working the dollar tree routes. sometimes they were so stupid it was scarier than anything else I've seen. and I've seen cars under my trailer and motorists and motorcyclists laying dead on the highway. Too bad you couldn't take a run or two with me on some of the hair-raising twolanes--would be fun to joke and talk whiling away the minutes and the broken white stripes along the highway. I don't know what the trucks are like in Britain but they are big here and we have distances to travel dude.

.

of dental arousal and the taboo tradition in Yorkshire

I dunno why anyone got to show their teeth like that
as if it indicates approval or affirmation
I don't show my teeth not ever
cept to a special few what gather
for the occasion
3,2,1 we go like on a saturday under the cloud you know
what cloud I mean
then I pullem out and let it burst all over
like the fireworks at a football game
woah they all jump back
never seen such stounding white hooters they cry
yeah I run around the ring in the firelight
toothing at them all
man they love it
getting scared and awed like that
then we get it on and all chew together
grinning like cheshire bats
tuning in our oscillatory dopplers
finally collapsing in big toothy heaps of love
all over, enamelled up to the grey waders

.

all of the unused things

half of the bed
many bodily functions
all the lower circuits of the mind
so many gestures only accessible
when relaxed
almost all of the chairs
the table
he becomes all cerebral
all top chakra
though that too withers
becomes a thin and wasted thing
his strut and pride
his elevation
his erection
his cockade and cloud
the laughter and arrogance
the penchant
the pendulum
at the last it is Toulouse Lautrec
shitting on a beach on camera
giggling
the whole world stinking of that giggling shit
a room in which one can barely breathe
bicycles
driving licences
hands, even hands
that used to make things
that used to give
now just pliers to lift the routine
disaster
get narrower still
watch it all slide away
just a brain in a jar
amongst the cauliflower heads
and onions
sending out its last mephitic signal
my name is this this
I don't remember
it doesn't matter
I left
they will pick through the traces
and find nothing
but ash
sticking to the floor in that outline
where the fluids became sticky
where the insects settled to feed
all else blown away
just a wisp and a whisper

civilisation

.

future in the quick

who knows that sensation
of knowing every word before it happens
of urging it on like a conductor
of watching the street and reciting
the future which car will do which
pedestrian will collapse by the tree
her shopping spilling sending
of watching the moor and anticipating
in your heartbeat the next gust and yammer
apples rolling over the walkway
into the puddles and the beat the beat
grouse rising disturbed water
shuffling in ghost forms through the grit
like an act of creation maybe
this is what it was bringing
the world to life the mad dance
maybe it hasn't finished
maybe if you sway hard enough
on the right day
when the wind is from the west
and the witchclocks allow
it will all happen again
the entire reboot
and you just did it
whipped up the wheel
scooped the froth
cast it out over the trees
the new trees
you and your lover
collapsed into each other's bodies
knowing everything
meantime tick tock tick
the lick of the slow wind and the slough

.

ceremonial magic on reality TV

If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week—Alec Guinness speaking to James Dean, September 23, 1955

empty air space
trumpets over the wet field
the creature keeps heaving
croaking at death
its head jerking sadly
the self harm of the new electric
the medication adds another level
to the arcade
think of a chasm
filled with mist
things whirling and crying
vegetation stripping
over it all like a slam
the night bridge
girders dropping into the fog
everything shaking
halfway across
nothing ahead or behind
wait for the signal
don't change anything
wait for the signal

^{same as it ever was
same as it ever was—David Byrne}

.

unfinished poem for David Mehler

six wide white streaks of paint up the Snake Pass I am alive I have wired one heart to the brain alternator at 70 amps and I still breathe the sun coming up over the rocky south stray 24 potential volts of lead acid sitting lurking like a storm of alchemy a dragon rising below the next hump the same sun again coming up over Sheffield like new dawn Vulcan CityI can't do ahead in the truckle of dawn but don't you worry honey I'll be dogging it in nursing like Chandler with his big old Chrysler dragging a battleship over the mountains only bigger bigger crashing through your dreams a Lancaster Bomber breaking through the crystal spheres

into liftoff and we sail over the last grand arches then that oof of the air machine as it sends me brakes like a whale a stench coming out way below of clutch and rubber and sin and then the clear fairway down to Manchester Central easing it on in with the mirrors the whole thing gasping out leviathan steam all over the wet morning six thousand horses in need of a drink

.