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druidic approaches
IAIN BRITTON
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Belfast Lapwing
druidic approaches IAIN BRITTON
Belfast LAPWING
First Published by Lapwing Publications c/o 1, Ballysillan Drive Belfast BT14 8HQ lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com http://www.lapwingpoetry Copyright Š Iain Britton 2011 All rights reserved The author has asserted her/his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Since before 1632 The Greig sept of the MacGregor Clan Has been printing and binding books
Lapwing Publications are printed at Kestrel Print Unit 1, Spectrum Centre Shankill Road Belfast BT13 3AA 028 90 319211 E:kestrelprint@btconnect.com Hand-bound in Belfast at the Winepress Set in Aldine 721 BT
ISBN 978-1-907276-91-0
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Some of these poems, or versions of these poems were published in such literary magazines and journals as: interrupture, and/or, Pool (US), Greendoor Publishing, Retort Magazine, Jacket, Otoliths (Aust) The Literateur, Horizon Review, Streetcake Magazine, anything anymore anywhere, The Red Ceilings Press (UK), The Black Herald (UK/France), Kilmog Press, Rem Magazine, All Together Now – New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre, University of Auckland (NZ) and the International Exchange for Poetic Invention
by the same author
HAULED HEAD FIRST INTO A LEVIATHAN (2008) Cinnamon Press LIQUEFACTION (2009) Interactive Press CRAVINGS (2009) Oystercatcher Press PUNCTURED EXPERIMENTAL (2010) Kilmog Press
iii
CONTENTS not all that’s silver glitters - is piscean . . . . . . . . . . 7 feelings mutual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 javelin … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 druidic approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 hold tight bulimic morning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 in translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 ferryman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 wrecking-ball pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 slumming it down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 sunlight pretending invisibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 curled up in my hand / a message . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 showstoppers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 plantation for immaculate thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . 29 universal playboy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 hybrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 encounters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 a rare find (darkened by dust) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 ticker-tape narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 turf war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 shooting up regardless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 last night’s heaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 suddenly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 multitudinous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 glazed abstractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 self portraits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 anecdotal evidence of a bucolic kind . . . . . . . . . . 51 the analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 late-night monologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 concrete playground ornaments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 through the halo burnt mirror … . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 farewell my lovely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 pidgin peace meal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 signed - the dwarf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 iv
druidic approaches
IAIN BRITTON
v
for Moira, Kirsty, Andrew and Catriona
vi
Iain Britton
not all that’s silver glitters - is piscean a trick
(no doubt). no cracks
you step from the window unscathed pedestrians pass through rain clouds of glass the bookshop retreats to its trenches of white fungus we shake hands my fingers
talk
by showing
pictures and you stuff them away for safety
in Hiruharama there are no Mormons singing poking the soil for wives
no men
or divining for aquifers
percolating cordials to the sea my viewpoint is ecumenical I have grown a beard for the ladies long hair for the shop
7
druidic approaches
no one seems to be digging escape routes any more a reflection of you obscures all I was hoping for my fingers talk about decoding one man’s interpretation you pin pieces of the universe to your body you’re rapt you wear them
like needles in the flesh / like splinters of bone
a hill fits awkwardly into this picture of flying fish not all that’s silver
glitters
is piscean
not everything comes hollowed out / desperate to be filled
8
unmarked
Iain Britton
feelings mutual he creates ideas dishes them up on a hot plate (the signs are there) selectively chosen <> he does it every day items spread out like nuts & bolts <> he looks for connections
kinships
compatibilities
dismantles them further itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a habit he reckons a reason to be <> Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve this memory of losing large fertile tracts of a dream to a better thinker an expert in the art of intervention at getting between the unpeeled seams of my skin who has me numbered has planted a finger in my brain. <> he has spent the last 10 years replicating what someone else couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do
9
druidic approaches
he’s proof there’s a parallel magnetic attraction where it’s possible to swing a ventriloquist’s dummy between permanently fixed poles nothing can split his tightly jammed lips or mangle the muted tone of his music the feeling’s mutual
I rewind my clock every night
before things fall
apart
10
Iain Britton
javelin … the sun
rolls in its wax
drops out of sight whispers perforate the new fields of poppies for tourists to admire they walk the gaps between a season’s shortness of breath they grab at fragrances I snuff up a white cloud put to bed a stillness & enter the undulating terrain of a city asleep there’s a Greek who lives off Diogenes’ scraps / off unwanted organisms there’s a Greek who once threw a javelin from coast to coast who could chant (clipped-like) the letters of my name … my response
to cut naked figures from stone
bathe them in tubs of light give them an ether-packed lift I require
ready-made hand-me-downs
for changing on washdays at the Pah
11
druidic approaches
a pearl in the eye to rub itself bloodshot every night a stone man
who stalks after the rarefied scent
of smell no evil
12
Iain Britton
druidic approaches robed purple you come down steps sprinkling off-cuts of tubed lighting onto a forest floor onto a carpet lushly greening as I look shadows
like walking sticks
hang about in circles feeling for imperfections in the grand scheme of this pick-a-path society I think of you
as a private performance which celebrates intimacy key-hole voyeurism for the paid-up few a display case for the famous dead
I refuse to let you go melt into some solstice like a blob of cream <> the forest floor has its own unique resonance left and right protrusions push faces flat against wood you feel the tight squeeze
the squirm 13
druidic approaches
robed for recognition you come spraying crops
the new born
too quick to put a price on wacky practices too golden delicious for the uninitiated rising from the dampness of a cold bruise
14
Iain Britton
hold tight bulimic morning many times
have I grabbed from the concubine
the long-eared curvaceousness of a dream
who calls the shots when decisions have to be made? I call the shots
I pull the trigger
hold tight to the Sunday duelists gun barrels down throats bulimic women consuming men the cross-eyed stars living on mountains / the sun has become a target the scores recorded distances measured the damage assessed before the next contestant steps up I deal out women (itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like playing cards) flash across a table grab
hands
retract
15
in forests
druidic approaches
you read my palm … lines push into a heartland a finger pokes at a wound daylight hides its bones in scars
I’m staring at a lake a cold flakiness a water stretching up early
I investigate
the tunnels
of a foreign body women who matter men who fornicate with the air boys who watch girls who change colour according to what is being played you claim a close affinity welcome me into your home and then there’s the disappearing act we’ve all paid exorbitantly for the Queen of Hearts is here is first to cut the cake
funny that
all on a summer’s day
16
Iain Britton
in translation the red beech feeds on the corpses of old polyglots sucks up what's best what's most nutritious
what's gonna
make it sing sonorously in the fiercest of winds the red beech has translated the works of James Joyce into 10 indigenous languages ++++ I'm not amazed
that's why
I remain stuck in a window contemplating the junked placenta of the world the use it /
lose it
of one man's treasure â&#x20AC;Ś ++++ the wax-eyes knit leaves in various greens they bustle through shrubs and insect thermals through procreative mayhem and a silent explosion this birdscape has it all canopies cram into the confused space of a breathing bubble 17
druidic approaches
++++ I walk the tightrope of wall-to-wall endlessness feel updraughts of nagging emotions the looping of hoops tightening a fragmentation amongst tribes of dwarfs speeches crumpling into false starts ++++ I glance
at glass
and comprehend immediately all I need to know a tongue protrudes
touching the chin
for those interested in palliatives I lick at samples of one man's poison
18
Iain Britton
ferryman
ask then about the clarity the stained-glass smoothness of stones the holed moon bloodied by its sudden leap I come across streams caked in alluvium hills with barbed-wire heads nomadic magicians
making hats for tricks
I pick up coins dropped from pay packets of long-term sleepers
at-risk icons
crumbling in the rain ## streams sparkle with candles reflections plunge I unpick
stitches of a draft plan
and study the way it falls apart I play Rachmaninov
my fixation is habitual
on my phone
breaking bread for her carp
19
for the lady
druidic approaches
yellow membranes
slide
and her initial reaction is to hop barefooted across rocks she ignores anything surplus to her needs the tampered-with commodity of her sex her damaged fantasies
opening to the river
##
Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve nothing ceremonial to offer the return journey is a feast / an orgy of fluctuations we are both separated by ropes
20
a famine
Iain Britton
wrecking-ball pendulum 1 about all there is to remember … the reverberations of one demolition site after another a wrecking-ball pendulum power packed and all the president’s men couldn’t put the egg together again
all the beasts of the field couldn’t gather the pieces that had cracked so easily couldn’t conjure up replacements like mountains on a roll a clock
communities digging in
mouthing instructions
crunching numbers
every hour
21
druidic approaches
2 here
children go to bed dipping the sun in midnight oil
cherubic wonders of khaki colour
dream up eggs
for people who occupy condemned honeymoon houses for the poor
3 the demolition squad closes in on hotels which float
which seldom break up
which spill futures down the narrowest of necks
beach impressions do count waves
scoop fissures amongst sunbathers and all the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s men
have been put on high alert they stand
painted
like skittles
for the sky to explode 22
Iain Britton
slumming it down he’s the one who bites /
drools
on hands and knees mothers fathers
watch siblings
gape
====== with cosmetic jaws displayed
he calls for the meal of the day calls me to his table
to his corner of slumming it down / with summer’s indecency ====== the garden
hangs by wires by rolls of duct tape
a master work
by roots
hooked to the sky
blossoms milk for attention hallucinogens are ingested a coupled rainbow
makes a hermaphroditic picture
flickering on a sky-drop of green and gold I’ve seen him
spinning chopping up the wind
seen him with flavours
working through stratus layers
23
filled
druidic approaches
Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve rummaged through the regurgitated tailings of his habits the soft mixtures of dumped prayers his voice crab-hops with mine dirt follows dirt torn shreds of summer follow the lost semen on clothes he does the talking ====== the street
headlines a kiss
a furious foreverness a sale of the century the street is a dead end / a liquor store / an Indian-owned grocer shop Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve no complaints he writes me into his theoretical study of genetic squandering â&#x20AC;Ś
24
Iain Britton
sunlight pretending invisibility the phone takes you from room to room
through seasons
an eavesdropper slinks along
pretending invisibility
he kids himself he stinks of belched nicotine sunlight shifts on stilts
steps
through roof-tops burns holes in ceilings and struts away with blackened memories he prides himself in believing he can run down the beach naked and plunge into the ocean in a cushion of foam
(no one blinks)
you barrack for recklessness gallivanting episodes of leaping through rings of fire who says the chairman of this /
or that company
isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t impressed who says you shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t try and enter the flower box of the green-lipped lady? â&#x20AC;Ś force your way inside where trespassers hammer in the daisies 25
druidic approaches
lop off clover heads break buttercups you re-enact the age of discovery fill
flesh pots in the dark
squeeze through slits of light predictably movie
he is there staring into the heart of a midnight
the lady kills swiftly snapping shut
her thighs
she writes fables for a living she cuts and pastes creates who she wants
to keep her clean
26
Iain Britton
curled up in my hand / a message send me to the townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bruised core to the late-night girls caught out by the early sun an implosion of grace and the last owl tunnels home the first magnolia opens let me find alternative routes lived-in dioramas souls dyed in red iridescence fag-ends attached to the mouths of brothers and sisters <> like a born prodigal
I walk
through kaleidoscopic patterns that bedazzle paths that keep halving curled up in my hand /
quartering
a message
stains and smells wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t rub off persons unknown
read to me
amputations of sagas washed up on a beach
27
druidic approaches
showstoppers define the language I practise against the convexity of a polished shape and watch the closing gap the cold touch
of mouth on mouth
the meeting of unlikely heads entrancement beckons today the black swans today voices praise
congregate
the bed and breakfast businesses of December under a singing sky == much vaunted much loved a family comes to grief in a corrugated-iron shed cheap haloes like body parts
are easily accessible
== the family thinks about sainthood their squalidness the thief-cum-rapist-cum-deviant vicar who looks after them I move the mirror full circle to determine what we are looking for
28
Iain Britton
plantation for immaculate thoughts from the 4 corners of this tower
lumped
on a map
made of plaster of Paris
I fill pockets with tricks the best magician wins the day thinks he’s invisible when he’s not white rabbits hide in cupboards in boxes (in hats?) a peaceful contradiction exists I conjure up my own sod of origin plan a park for trees a plantation for immaculate thoughts flower beds which will eat fragrances all year round from this monolithic inheritance avenues spoke outwards to capture returning prodigals ancestral dropouts the multiple births of children the sun’s last sentence on any day I draw rings around the spots where you have been I tap your sex to let me in grandeur’s deception is at play cards are dealt and predictably you choose the Queen of Hearts because she reads like you
29
druidic approaches
universal playboy painted lines criss-cross this universal playboy of the Polynesian world a strange masochism is at work threading hot wires through veins connecting me to him to this epiphany in progress
he compartmentalizes the morning inhabits a caption
written for him
for a picture of his maidservant he explores by touch strips of sunlight
her dog
her cat
draped over a balcony
heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neither soldier sailor
butcher
but carries a helmet for his journey
from the balcony blunted-blue agapanthus choke in numbers
30
Iain Britton
hybrid 1 a muddled lettering
reinvents
who she is roses petal-up each summer and the owners of Shangri-La look smug 2 sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fascinated by the daily reconstruction of events leading up to her presence in the garden 3 she has colours for everyday use right down to her toe-nails she has her looks habits mood variations I often say stuff
I regret
and wish I could undo the moment I grabbed her buttocks stuck out my tongue verbally abused the air around her mouth 4 the owners of Shangri-La tolerate our perambulations and comes at us
she loves a lolly scramble
working overtime to please she disguises herself because thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no alternative
31
druidic approaches
encounters weighed down with rocks this pool
like a huge boiled eye
soaks in its own solution the sea comes knocking
reflections stare upwards a Pepsi drink hangs in the balance and a girl past encounters splash across people
jumps in
as the tide cleans up
my path constantly shifts
so when do I strike out
when do I follow catch the man with the truth serum shooting up in the dark? yesterday I walked into a hill shaped like a dome into a church shaped like a hill I created from a mind seizure incandescent particles wanting absolution is about reading the fine print carefully
32
Iain Britton
a rare find (darkened by dust) a theme pouts and a talismanic pendulum ticks
to and fro
lips smear walls a black rose
springs up
centre
stage
floorboards and thorns
shift
flake aphrodisiacs
*** on stage she touches my arm speaks of doping herself up lays eggs in my skin curls up in the cup of my hand *** my role:
to collect
wings abdomens maggots
cocoons
famous for their spirals their twists and turns sudden dead-ends they gulp at headlines *** 33
druidic approaches
a rare find
(darkened by dust)
she reveals a truth a clutching of hand on heart a life form softened by sound
34
Iain Britton
ticker-tape narrative straight as
is not how I’d sum you up
or this relationship or the girl at the window infected with butterflies doorways seem crowded a hipster’s rhapsody squeezes in floors sag and the earth digs its own hole somebody is cooking pork is peeling the make-up off apples the girl undresses /
dresses
in full view
of individuals like me who deliberately find windows worth returning to butterflies ticker-tape vast blue spaces lift us higher you lift us higher you have a set agenda based on migrations
of what
who
and if
what if the blue bird flies who will sit on the blue bird if it flies if I sit on the blue bird where will it fly? the earth selects indiscriminately flocks of herds of schools of for its daily intake it sucks dry the old
spits them back
each morning I unwrap a perspective but you won’t grab it 35
anew
druidic approaches
butterflies ticker-tape amongst stars reeling in their orbits the girl flirts with the crowd pushing at her windows she dances teases flirts with the men who bid highest for sections of her body an oven opens its legs to the blue plumage of a disintegrating travelogue you inhabit the wardrobe of a mirror being who you want to be choosing from the racks of preferences threadbare and angel-worn you make the most of living ubiquitously
36
Iain Britton
turf war in my garden the orchids
are headless
=== the orchids are tediously slow at growing the look is not good === Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve this difficulty with loitering on familiar turf as if waiting for an accumulation of biographies to descend on me from some unrelated source beyond my thinking span of years === Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve this difficulty knowing where to put you what box to squeeze you into why squeeze you in at all what purpose justifies what I want to do? === in my garden stones
have been trampled into place
by unidentified objects and scribbled on
some
circle the moon
some turn their humps to the sun tell stories or pull moss and lichen over their faces some grow fur coats for the winter ===
37
druidic approaches
it’s a fact (well-known to me) my problems are obsessional like repeatedly washing my hands repeatedly locking doors or checking to confirm they’re locked or checking the doors are where they should be or washing my hands or cleaning the car everyday walking the perimeter of my garden opening and shutting the letter-box 4 or 5 times – always before lunch does she love me does she love me not does she love me does she... does she? one more spin around the garden wash my hands lock the door unlock the door my problems are territorial === but where to keep you where to put the brightly-carved container that’s supposed to fit your head and torso toes
your knees and
for god’s sake let’s walk to the letter-box and back === in my garden I pull out the orchids for too long
for them
which stare at me it’s too late
it’s so bloody mechanical this turf rebellion without a cause I dig holes to fool the rain
38
Iain Britton
shooting up regardless the rules
are readable
one look at her face her slit eyes her green tattoos she steps onto no man’s land takes a deep breath and touches the hearts of last week’s stripped and searched cosmic-makers of dreams she doesn’t budge to the helmeted head sticking up from its bolt-hole
I push
through smoke and lightning collapsed sunspots the buildings of a childhood folded back into the earth booze-fuelled
the clouds
devour the stuntmen who stand in for me who do my tricks while I stare and sing and shoot up serums of flavoured enrichment 39
druidic approaches
she comes from her place amongst statues amongst the crowded robes of a night sky the breeding farms of people I stumble through the rubble of a tabernacle
looking
for lost property for a tribe that once lived on water lived like a word in my ear
the rules are cut into trees to be read in the dark to be fingered interpreted hammered into foreheads to be burnt
like love letters
in backyard cemeteries
nothingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too much
she sucks in
the hot air from tall black chimneys
40
Iain Britton
last night’s heaps you shop the fluorescent dens for Rapunzel’s makers the caged-in operators of scenic towers you climb the backyard ziggurat advertising your day
silhouetted on a heap
______________________________________________________ this is the season of wind and rain of trampling on a storm’s rough stones of tails / wrapped around legs heads huddled into coats your body
my body
back to back explorations of where each isn’t going you wonder at the strangeness
the detachment
the wearing of the carpet dreams pensioned off the plucking of narratives from Gothic illuminations ______________________________________________________
41
druidic approaches
you winter out
amongst
last nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
dropped in heaps in the continuing song cycle of our Lady of the Poor in the shattered smile of her remains I crack the day as it comes
42
lambs
Iain Britton
suddenly last spring’s rained-off condemned to archipelagos of golden ponds
an ensemble
pulls out invisible instruments
and the air
bulges
as if plucked
you appear
sunburnt / weathered
you shift amongst hilltops and resemble my father taking over the terraces of his garden ** every year you bury what hasn’t been picked ** you’ve become
a constant companion
and a forest whistles through your teeth valleys amplify sound I raindance because I like to mornings are about who has the best lungs the finest jazz rhythms the funkiest androgynous shuffle … it’s about topping the fence posts in the garden
43
druidic approaches
leaping to victory ignoring the decoys the shotgun’s blast ** my father would’ve approved the curved outswinging progress of the sun’s return he would’ve approved your custodianship the secateurs creations the blood and bone writings of once famous gardeners the shovelling of shredded inheritances one on top of the other
the night /
beds down
and I trap sleepless butterflies in small green jars
44
Iain Britton
multitudinous I want to begin my talk with how or as you
or
when I was … but
the one-armed bandit
in my brain spins the wrong fruit and there is no clatter of success no indicator the coloured baubles of my life are going to flash and ping or puke out diadems a gunrunner is going to kill for he kills anyway my talk is what it is – I open my mouth and only the cloisters of a blue heaven listen figures in the room
don’t clap
they shuffle about stooped in tacitness they dismantle veiny scriptures torn from a Dead Sea Scroll
45
druidic approaches
I open my mouth and a voice strips itself of stories silhouettes obscure I begin my talk when the earth was a sepulchre pushing up effigies for
burning
when the earth was a map you could fall off tumbling
through glittering auroras
fraternize with tribes /
mercenaries
they kill too the mornings are populated by heads floating cold mists
depersonalised units
thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s this expectation the breaths of many will be tagged with names 46
when you could
Iain Britton
glazed abstractions the sun
(if it can be seen)
squats on the mantelpiece
won’t deviate
from its position of being a shadow plays hopscotch on the damp footprints of buildings which now reflect the draping partitions of a day
standing up
which number off for the mr and mrs smiths of this town who grab the contents of windows ransack displays with glances /
show eyeballs
which swallow what’s made in China is not enough <> I walk between the hills and the deep blue sea between the glazed abstractions of night and day I experience the visceral wish of galloping eastwards shooting from the mouth <> behind closed doors
the naked
imagine orgies
springing from the doldrums of foreplay nobody gives a damn about the blood the wine the spilt body fluids the recently tupped earth rolling over on its side in a primal frenzy
I pluck summer’s fruit /
stuffing indiscriminately 47
a solitary glutton
druidic approaches
topping up my juice count plundering Babylon’s orchards in one gung-ho swoop <> behind closed doors a woman
who never says too much
has wormed herself into a situation a symbiotic hooker who refuses to jump to the exorcist’s tune refuses to be gagged
or dislodged
she sinks into this too too solid flesh compound this prescriptive measure of what’s good for her … to be taken daily with water
48
Iain Britton
self portraits pointillist spots make all the difference
a therapist holds me to her theories on which coloured balloon should I choose for survival for anonymity should take us further * the bell on the roof pulls its rope and make-believers shuffle through months of periodicals glossily detailed for leisure reading they bookmark pages go with the herds
the flocks
the girls ripped open by the moon they live for renewal ticketed pilgrims clicked and stamped and cleared for departure
49
druidic approaches
the girls run red along wet streets where idols hang where light bulbs swing in half-formed faces and phones flicker * self portraits live cooped-up in houses damp suggestions of another life glad-wrapped
into equal portions
* I want to believe there are consequences for going early from the party at the door
a girl
is happy to give me a complimentary pass and a red balloon
50
Iain Britton
anecdotal evidence of a bucolic kind 1 but this is the worst time of the year (for him)
(for me)
the nissen huts are overcrowded families squashed in the work force
nervous
Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m told when lightning plays havoc it affects speech patterns the gestures of people shut in at close quarters a textbook on peaceful cooperation is obligatory
51
druidic approaches
2 beyond the urban edge roads smoke in fertiliser cracks widen kikuyu grass cuts a green path and another season signs on the nissen huts have closed their doors I check the alarms the sprinkler systems / shower blocks
52
Iain Britton
3 he describes a few paddocks the extent of boundaries one drab orchard he sees himself as a clued-up pastoralist who could break the bones of any drought stick a finger into the stone wall of an oozing hill he spends his days unearthing horoscopes adjusting to observations of black cats mad-eyed owls a Judas sheep in his backyard Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m told
at night he sits in a room made for toys
53
druidic approaches
the analysis begins the eyes tell what zodiac signs sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been drinking a registry of images flickers / is accounted for she plays with a silver lion â&#x20AC;&#x201C; fits her head in its mouth like a fur ball >>> all day the town has been rolling itself in blue grass
shadows meet
in riotous profusion beyond macrocarpa walls
summer
burns the innocence from streets >>> hold hard to these confessions scratched in glass each window begins with a date
a month
the year
>>> I clock in
make an appearance
the assembly line boasts of human cargo ships leave harbour
hopeful
of a flirtation with the sun 54
Iain Britton
workers interpret the second nuclear bypass as they want to reborn cultists stand clawing at hills preening feathers bagged in their shoulders it’s all to do with anticipation I clock in take my place beside a man who stares at his machinery a woman who looks at the sudden wrinkling of her hands she counts the cat’s lives listens to the clunk of his hammer I stand between them floating my soul out the window the analysis takes flight but who follows who would give up his place / his spanner pulled from the works his ode to reality >>> she swallows twins again doubling the doses of dreams the choices of ‘what’s good for me’ 55
druidic approaches
she pigs-in to merry-go-rounds of sampling mushrooms the safest of toadstools the smallest of available people I place a fingernail on a page of glass push it out
like a nib
I’ve something to confess along the road
ladders
lean on homes
which aren’t really there can’t speak for themselves
some of us have started to climb some are hesitant some reluctant a small boy (so high) believes free falling is the answer indoors
by the conveyor belt
I want to elaborate on the crucifixion of a goat
56
Iain Britton
late-night monologue be like this – be transitory a gateway obstacle to the next apartment where a sigh escapes in a roll-your-own breath where a stool takes the sudden shift of my weight and a late-night monologue loads a listener’s request to practise walking down a long tunnel gutted by ancestral burnings <> I offer my version of events as they happen you aren’t sure about the rain it’s coldness the integers on your arms
parenthesised or the inked letters
of a name tattooed in sunsets recapitulation is all talk / dredge work / more talk
57
druidic approaches
you’re into the habit of quickly shutting doors <> but who’ll step up
make
altar-suggestions of stained-glass jabberings reflected on the mount who’ll request a right to what I’ve hung in every room
drawn and arranged
<> a water-colour
shoves a church
through my window / monuments crumble into drunks mixed genders angels in shabby clothes a crowd hacks at the air to get a look in they knock at places with rooms to let you pick up another man’s junk we are witnesses to things as they happen we make apes of ourselves leave slag heaps for neighbours turn our backs on backs we avoid confrontations zeroing-in on the mischievous cackle of a river 58
Iain Britton
concrete playground ornaments hauntings leap-frog and a fiery dialogue breeds arguments I tear strips from a family book and the hauntings dig holes amongst the vegetables some have ripped out the strawberry fields by their red coats a woman has entered my new yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resolution and into a circus of hanging masks where I bloody myself as if it were a ritual she has grid-searched my quarters rubbed traces of herself into carpets
chairs
curtains /
the freezer
has locked in particles of what she looks like
for respite I go to the ornamental playground of small concrete lanterns / miniature shrines for disfigured philosophers / the scrolled-flat historians for respite I hitch a ride on a white swan cemented to the reflection of its pond 59
druidic approaches
the idea is to perceive the forward motion of where Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m off to treat everything
like a night out at the movies
jump on the bandwagon jump off the bandwagon fire body parts at will laugh cry grab stab embrace a woman has entered my soon-to-be-completed page of paragraphs lines shape a face spaces fill quickly lips become visible for a moment and then like a planet on its astral stem her head
turns full circle
into something else clamping down on sounds
60
Iain Britton
through the halo burnt mirror â&#x20AC;Ś autumn leaves crackle brown dust skids off paths and an assortment of hibiscus dangles raggedly == the lady in my bedroom puts herself together every morning after a hard night of dismantling herself in the presence of others I study the performance of reconstruction turn on my fiction
add
magic to my agenda to the long tall efforts of ballooning upwards and through the halo burnt mirror
I reach
the scorched-high peaks of ripening â&#x20AC;&#x201C; where rainbows are part of the hydroponic mix where skies experimental swap a humpbacked crowdedness == the lady in the bedroom drinks coffee
eats biscuits
complains she is still too fat still too restricted by the company she keeps 61
druidic approaches
== I open my roof like a tin lid for the hot air to get out the birds to get in a jacaranda shatters the windows and paints the daylight purple today the intention is to visit the lake to visit the red house on the corner where Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m its only customer == after the sun has dropped off the tourist map / the shelf / the clock the lady sniffs out her bedroom nothing shows reciprocates the darkness gropes about for its rightful place in the queue
62
Iain Britton
farewell my lovely thunder interjects momentarily a woman starts and a melting flavoured goo gulped down hurriedly dribbles amongst floorboards she scales the lofty sticky heights of a shaft of sunlight a foamy transparency falls and while she climbs I roll into a hammock between coniferous clouds
slung
and while she climbs
her existence depends on conquests mayhem
a resignation
a deal on how to extract the good things in life which arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t for the taking which need a policy of persuasion __________________ I roll over in my high-slung bed relying on pictorials of her journey
Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m like the blue man buried deep in the blue sky 63
druidic approaches
fare thee well my lovely from your house amongst houses amongst flower pots the shrubs the indoor creepers which live by doing star jumps every morning from amongst the software of kissing the flesh of men you don’t know / to men you do / to the icons of sepia that grope out from a darkness from histories done and dusted __________________ so where’s the whiteout the blackout how to step the hemispheres put down roots / pull them up / put them down how easy is it to live
head over heels
a clown tumbling forwards a rapist by sight alone a healer by touch farewell my lovely from this heirloom / these scarred towers
this studded apex
from the roads of ropes the icarus manoeuvres that tether us / untether us I’m like the blue man flying high in a blue sea
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Iain Britton
and while she climbs this woman
buffed smooth
gets closer to the red pagodas the floating pagodas and while she climbs her heroics are recognised her conquests acknowledged
a captive audience has been paid to never let her go they have their flags their slogans they wear her words sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s there
pole dancing
amongst the nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s illuminations
65
druidic approaches
pidgin peace meal the man in feathers shuts his eyes
squats
amongst jacaranda fallout drinks cold tea / forgets to speak up /
as if his beginning
had its faults in a syllabic nod in the screwed-up mechanism of a missing tomorrow # he spills daylight steps on bones washes his feet / my feet blackens my shoes / whitens my face for the photographer at the gate # I tick all the right boxes check names
tickets
the red and blue ribbons the winners of categories I cross out others
with heads tucked into chests
convinced every fast-food supper is their last / every scrap of blue sky / field of lupins / every girl washed by the sea / #
66
Iain Britton
the man paints a tree a hot pool of mud a gap where molecules breed he pushes me into blurred possibilities where cargo-cult customers line up to dismember old myths flying nuns grab at wasted prayers the city exists on the edge of a steaming oven I read a book see for myself how characters are hung out to dry and how they live the heat
is in the language in the breathing fragments
# my favourite pastime is watching my neighbour through a hole in the fence dance
birdlike into a thanksgiving heap 67
druidic approaches
he offers cold tea to whoever he thinks is thirsty whoever’s hungry he speaks to a snapshot a face in a face he’s cracked and marred by three score years of sucking on the smell of an oily rag he lives in a drought-stricken room shifts occasionally a collage of grafted hybrids sends out mixed signals of what branch what fruit what tugs the belly why wait for this flawed human product to track amongst last year’s residue I bypass today’s callers meeting outside staring in 68
Iain Britton
signed - the dwarf very clear cut these likes / dislikes daisies dandelions
thumbs of clover
this pick-a-petal dwarf prickly questions are in the air so don’t muck about when describing your mother /
or father
goldfish in a bowl your dog trained weasels all shoved in a drawer don’t become a predator of ancient finger-painted stories where bigots beat drums play fifes shout and smirk through orange-peel teeth where one’s nearest and dearest spit fiercely and ghosts fall down
69
druidic approaches
prickly questions
pop up
who is this dwarf from the urban tip for snatchers of body parts unlimited what composite undersized thespian struts our street wants to rule by pumping fists you place yourself in a field position yourself in different places the field takes ownership you play the game / as itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s written down in the manual smallest person in front who leads by example /
by not being seen
you stand in his wrecked shoes closed-circuit wizardry is alert to hair follicles shifting to goosebumps rippling on the skin 70
Iain Britton
high frequencies of bat sound owl sound night shooters biding their time wings flap invisibly between migratory landing strips made of water from the darkness letters of introduction appear headless stamps smudged cities
smelling of fingers
the dwarf / cuts the frost / the soil / buries his next of kin having sex with the moon / separates memories into striptease dreams your parents hate sand hate beaches the hot shit of seagulls the exuberance of salt-fed shadows / they refuse to come closer
71
druidic approaches
w
72
L A P W I N G PUB L I C A T I O N S
IAIN BRITTON
Iain was born and educated in Palmerston North, New Zealand. He spent many years living and teaching in London followed by a spell as an EFL teacher in Bournemouth. He now teaches at a large independent school for boys in Auckland. Since 2008, he has had four collections of poems published: Hauled Head First into a Leviathan, Cinnamon Press, Liquefaction, Interactive Press, Cravings, Oystercatcher Press and Punctured Experimental, Kilmog Press. His poetry has been published widely in such magazines as the Warwick Review; Wolf Magazine, Nthposition, Blackbox Manifold, Horizon Review, Leafe Press, Great Works, The Literateur, Harvard Review, BlazeVOX, Drunken Boat, Zoland Poetry, Jacket, Upstairs at Duroc and the International Exchange for Poetic Invention.
The Lapwing is a bird, in Irish lore - so it has been written indicative of hope. Printed by Kestrel Print Hand-bound at the Winepress, Ireland
ISBN 978-1-907276-91-0
ÂŁ10.00