The Mushroom Fields by Phil Durham

The Mushroom Fields

BY PHIL DURHAM ILLUSTRATED BY HARRIET ROBISON

THE MUSHROOM FIELDS

when the dust rises from the earth and the pollen returns to the bees, to the flower, to the stem, the bud. when the earth spits out a poison rain and the storm calms talcum clouds: the mushroom fields will billow, still.

plankton, sharks, whales and all will be carried out from the beach, and the sea will swell in its enormity, when the crust wave coolly sweats, the buildings reset, and regrets fade: the mushroom fields will billow, still.

when the first bone wraps ligament, solid flesh and skin around itself, becoming the first and last, undying. when the glare fades from the TV, the office PC, the window, the street:

the mushroom fields will billow, still.

when reason whets the wallet belly, and the money comes folding in to parliament, to congress, to us. when all causes retrace their steps, and the roads re-tarmac themselves: the mushroom fields will billow, still.

MAHA BANDHA BY CAMDEN LOCK

I went limp by camden lock when she asked me to walk with her. we both knew what she wanted, but I could hardly do one half of that. she’d caught me under the lustre of slim jim’s badly-lit, brassiere-chandelier last weekend and

quizzed me on femininity.

I’d thought-out-loud that, “you do what you want.” and known that I could never do one half of that for myself. I wish you’d hanged my masc -ulinity from the rafters and asked me the same question twice: so that I’d’ve had a chance

to find lucidity; and lament for you.

instead I stood there with lucifer in my fist, sipped at his jugular, and decanted bravado

into a voodoo doll – or something like me. I wanted to go limpid with her when she asked me to walk with her down camden lock, down by the canal

but instead, I could only think, “you know more than I know.” and did nothing.

A MOTHER’S HEX

I needed a pair of black brogues for a funeral.

we’d been having good weather, so I wore my cut-off, corduroy shorts. I had to go back up the tufnell park road to old nag’s head. there are shops there that’ll sell you almost anything, but

I only needed a pair of black brogues for a funeral.

along the way I saw another mother, smiled to her child, and somehow had to question myself – even for that. so, I tried to pull my chin up, and away, and into the clouds:

where I only needed a pair of black brogues for a funeral.

I felt the mother’s hex upon me as I walked behind her in my haphazard manner – she must have thought that I’d been drinking. one after another, hallmark thoughts added to the hubbub in my head

but I only needed a pair of black brogues for a funeral.

in a hollow homage to lost faith I crossed my heart, poured one out, and proceeded to swallow my heresy. how I thought that I was holier-than-thou, I’ll never understand

again – I only needed a pair of black brogues for a funeral

but I came away with a busted lip and a low-order of miracle.

O/I

they keep whispers from me in the dim, lint-corners of their homes: where otherwise there would be insects and a glimpse beneath the floor boards.

they move like spiders on fingertips, like the creaking of a fractured skull. they crawl inside synapses and spark flint on rock. somewhere, there must

be a god, catcher of waking dreams. fold me away in a fourth dimension so that I can sit silently and watch moonlight refract, and dissipate.

I want to feel. if it means I must burn – then let me watch from outside of myself. let there be a grand procession and a brass band; a float; a cliff; a fall.

eradicate my more misshapen moods. forget I ever said, “diecuntfuckmurder” I was lying when I meant it. so, you may, by all means, place roses on my coffin.

DEATH, TAXES & TERRORISM

it began with intuition and a cold sweat, hot sweat, gone cold again. I’d met murder that night, and his seven hounds followed me home

into the morning. a glance, swiped, and my phone glared back at me. my eyes hurt. they bled like oceans that beat brains against the shore. the tens of thousands that made the crowd, cast amongst the rocks, screeching, screaming, flowing tears, and the white horse behind them

caked in blood. a trampling that shook the ground, carried terror, and rang out like the hives of the twenty thousand tormented.

I stood with them, in spirit, as one fled past – a manic mother of two –and her name was Hope, though her face echoed in despair.

we stood with one another, as the dust of death piled up around us, and hushed our cries. for the lion slept calmly, still in his keep.

PROPER GANDHI

i’m a want do. do. do. i’m a we will. we can. we man. i’m a we. we. i’m a peopleof-the-people person. person of the people’s people. i’m a want do, can do, we can do, you me. i’m a will-gonna. a will have a. a will gonna have want, me. me a will gonna have want but know don’t need-a/take-but-not-needer. so fuck. fuck you. fuck you a disease want a make. fuck you a disease in another place. fuck you a try disease taster want a maker-doer. or at least a try-maker-doer. fuck. a difficult trier. difficult try with the no, no. difficult-maker. more difficult you a want-maker, you. with the brain freezer basement, you. you a taker. you a taker, too. take two. you take a wanter. make a want-taker. but i’m a make-wanter. i’m a want-say, a want-need-taker. i’m a take-you, i’m a take you-want-needs. i’m a take you want you need you kill it. i’m a take-you, kill you a thief. i’m a take you, thief. i’m a take-you-put-a-person person. i’m a take-you-put-you-dead person. i’m a take-you-put-you-not-a-person-no-more person. i’m a take-you-put-you-

want-away-put-you-want-no-more-want-say-no-more person. that’s the type of person i am. a whichever puppet wears the pope did make the rape hand dance an arbitrary yet bland dance-making-man and the signature stamped a sign “apres”, a sign I pray, a sign. a pre-cosine angular deformity, a predetermined deformity. whichever hat the black crap sits in. whichever snapback the bat man rapes in. the informal party. the in formal party. the in-out-informal formal party. the form: all hardy. where the party boys go wild the girls go wild while the others. wild at home. their hovel. their hole. their basement. their car park, abandoned. their corner, abandoned. their street-sign, abandoned. their bar, two, bars, three bars, two bars, again. can’t hear. can’t hear them speak. can’t hear them think. can’t. Can’t Hear Their dreams. can’t. won’t. Sleep. connect.

COMMENTARY

While writing these poems, I felt innately, acutely aware of their connection in terms of theme. However, upon returning to evaluate them as a brief collection, I found the connection to be somewhat more elusive than I had initially imagined. Eventually I concluded that they are tied together by an existential nihilism which begins in a fairly Freudian fear of impotence, and ends in a deeper, surrealist-psychoanalytical examination of the search for meaning, and belonging.

Through the cycle, less focus is given to the importance of place and time, shifting, instead, to more introspective modes of thought – ending in an almost complete syntactical breakdown and the loss of a coherent sense of self.

Of the various influences permeating through these poems, John Berryman’s “Dream Songs” is almost certainly the strongest. Although I cannot say that I have borrowed much from his use of form, I feel that I have been deeply influenced by his often nihilistic attitude, and the way in which he is able to flit between symbols and images without degrading the inherent meaning of either. Which leads well onto Baudrillard, and Saussure, whose individual dissections of semiotics at a nuclear level of intimacy have (if not always translated to a profound understanding) certainly made an impression on the way in which I now approach language as a craftsman. Baudrillard asserts in

his “Symbolic Exchange and Death”, that, while Saussure considered language as a formula, “What is essential, whatever the formula is, is to consider the poetic not as the mode of the formula's appearance, but as its mode of disappearance.” Which I have taken to be an apt description of the deconstruction essential to the craft of good poetry, and the elimination necessary to the craft of great poetry. In other words, the production of something jarring, or entirely unfamiliar to the reader.

Paul Celan’s “Death Fugue” and “Little Root of a Dream” are each excellent examples of this mode of poetry which remove all but the essential context to present their contents in a raw, emotional provocation. The closest I came to this pure state in my work would most likely be in “O/I” where the speaker laments the regret, torment and lack of meaning in his life. Celan’s repetition in “Death Fugue” inspired the repetition in, “A Mother’s Hex”, which deals with the holding-at-arms-length of the mourning process.

In “Death, Taxes and Terrorism”, I reacted to the recent events which transpired at a pop concert in the Manchester Arena. I used Shelley’s, “The Masque of Anarchy” as a shell framework for the piece and transcribed myself into the piece as a visionary spirit – in the spirit of romanticism – so as to revisit his work from a modern context.

I wrote “The Mushroom Fields” as a reaction to one of our class prompts and was inspired by Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse 5” – particularly the passage in which bombs rise out of explosions, from the ground and are eventually picked apart in factories. I also held Bukowski’s, “Dinosauria, We” in mind for this piece, while maintaining a deeper pessimism throughout with the refrain, “the mushroom clouds billow, still”.

In “Maha Bandha by Camden Lock” the issues of physical and mental impotence are raised in response to a sexually charged confrontation. The titular reference is to a yogic practice which is also known as the “great lock” and is intended to provide sexual restraint amongst other things. To my eye, however, the position, when held, has the appearance of a person enduring a great mental and physical strain. The cycle begins with this poem as a wry implication that many of the world’s greatest problems begin with what psychoanalysts would refer to as sexual frustration, and/ or repression.

To complete the cycle, “Proper Gandhi.”, depicts a syntactically unhinged descent into political dissociation. In many ways, it also portrays the effect that politicians such as Donald Trump have on their supporting electorate. What starts out as the interpretation of a positive message is quickly subverted and becomes deeply disturbing by its conclusion. I wrote this poem as a stream of consciousness while listening to a montage of Mr. Trump’s speeches leading up to his election. The constant repetition in each encourages the reader/listener to slip in and out of the monologue – consciously and subconsciously absorbing information as they progress.

This final poem is a departure from the forms of the previous poems in the cycle, and is stylised akin to a newspaper column. Which leads me to another of the processes which tie these poems together: that of the disintegration of form – alongside the senses of place and time. In the first of these six poems, the speaker’s register is clearly conversational – if somewhat affected – but by the final poem, the reader is subjected to an almost entirely incoherent pseudo-psychological garble. Along the way, the reader may notice the affectation of more recognisable poetic devices. Being that poetry, in my world-view, is a discipline in pursuit of the expression of basic human truths, I had the intention of leading the reader to one final, wry chuckle at the misdirection they will have suffered by discovering that my conclusion comes in the form of a near-illiterate newspaper column filled with false idioms and the effects of propaganda.