On Sycophants
you have supped with the fish
written of his pin stripes
played with his milk sacs
but have you driven his car?
I have, so NAHR
**
woke up, back to ordinary consciousness
Harris took the bondage applicator off
Oh he looked unhappy and lachrymal
a bit too much colonic irrigation
words were sweeping through
the city's sewer system
there seemed to be leakage everywhere
I walked the markets
they serve night-shift workers
brewed from a type of millet
small eats booths and windows
first slit of light
organdie, blood sucked orange lips,
silks with dragon prints
cobbled stone walks
back alleys
drains
the civet cat,
hare, hanging duck, snake, wasp nest totems
taken between the lips
sucked and lolloped
happy as a pog in shit
**
there is an old city
of formidable rock
an assemblage of collations
of star ports
of quadrants turning on the outskirts
they say of the inhabitants
they are improvident
they are lazy
yet they have no fear of cold or hunger
there are no rich households
Chu is a land of lakes and rivers
the city blends in
it is all things,
mono & poly
there on the hill or in the valley
fed by great rivers
the rain god sprinkles clear the road
the ocean road
the road to the vast desert
the road which the star port opens
to a language you cannot read
falling from the sky
it is written on the walls of the city
& there is silence all around
silence of the moth
silence of the gnat
silence of the snake
silence of the wolf
silence of the scorpion
almost post coitum tristitia
**
zoo and eats
that's what Harris called his restaurant
menu full of protected shark and contraband whale
goes out the back with a hook harpoon
sharpens up the appetite
krill for a starter
the water in and around said environs
(the most polluted in the world now)
is a treasure waiting to be spent
there is dog
civet cat
bear's paw
snake & monkey
take home a doggy bag
practice zoomancy
spirits don't eat
that's why they are pale and wan
almost see-through
almost condom to the touch
almost not real
almost clear as a tear
they survive on a diet of dew
they are light enough to fly
can you get reverse suction on this said Harris
don't plug it in for God's sake
the leaking of the poet's room
disembodied, disembedded
the granite blocks of the city
seem to be sliding
a little bit thinned and watered down
in our cities we look like nomads
leaving his girdle for Harris in one of the river's inlets
a jade girdle
a rose for the can
a strainer for his tea
a garlic press
a language leaking
zones marked off by the Pogminister
& the present information invasion
by food & bottle parasites recycled wormery
"beyond the radiant slits
who cry nooses of noon
toward a transformed future
the stabilising force of the immutable present
a three way plug
Harris wants a Take Away
Snacks and Street Food
instructing the cook
on the spot
to cook it
we have red and watery fresh peeled
round eye lychees from Furhou
from shady cool Piguang some sour tart,
from Songyang
sweet sweet luscious
yellow orange green tangerine and
some supple supple soft quite quite white
crystal crushed flat persimmons
notice the way the steps ruin this way and that
ew ork ome and aris
a name dropper of sorts
the rhythmic bazaar sculptured space
and gardens in the city
and parks
are usually pots and pans
or plots and plans
did all things once start in the same place
this leakage
**
the city of thieving,
the city of rice grains
the city of rams
teeming you remain my favourite,
empirical & theoretical when you walk
the whelk speaks
the wok talks
in the swim you engage
simmering, stewing, deep sea frying
the city of radical pronouncements is
indeed the wish of a lifetime
my favourites sell condiments
ginger juice, lily buds,
star anise on clouds
flew five immortals
riding rams
he was sick all week
"something you ate?"
maladie initiatique
seafood splashed puddle
you call back Isfahan
stars tumble & collapse
you are ill and the dragon yanks at your gut
you are poor & you hold out your hand
city of delight
historic & productive city
city of parasites
city of disputes
future city
city of teeming rain
city of inestimable numbers
**
God said Harris you're quick with your vacuum cleaner
I'd rearranged it to look like a space vehicle
I could strap it to my back
snorkel & nozzle
some deep sea fish
cast over quartz eyes in a dynamic synchrony
against tense & lax vowel movement
today my son told me of shitting
he sort of bent down and the shit squirted out wet
where do they pee from
I wasn't paying attention
I thought he was telling me of the fat baby at the zoo
wearing glasses,
two earrings in one ear,
naked, with boobs
when all along he was describing a penguin
both Trubetzkoy and Sergej were amazed
at the positive reaction of the penguin committee
we had little penguin motifs
tattooed on our arms
we called ourselves the conservationists
or was that the conversationalists
and scrubbed out the word ZOO
Harris had no recollection of being lost
I'd like to have hoovered him up
but he would have left a wet stain
it's either left or right or straight ahead
if you're lost return from whence you came
this is difficult when I was born here
you landed on your feet
with primary waders
and in the centre of the city is a square
it looked like a grid system to Harris
it looked like a good system to Harris
when you're lost there is no system
he pulled out three dactyls to buy a map
they rung like heaven
and looked to the stars
through a maze of dishes
ponder stars and dishes
observe the paradigmatic axis
rather than successivity and simultaneity
!(syrup like light)
close up in the poetic
a releaser will spore the mites of dust
y dread
the planet of scrape wind
carries the contents
ride this worm
this shaman ram
into the world of tears
there to listen to the delimitations of
dark labialized vowels
Quick, my vacuum cleaner has a sister
this is the Pogminister talking
a releaser slowly eases the word poison into your bran
I am naïve to ask
being lost in syrup like light
& fan out the map
its a grill system of a zoo
to look after the animals
at time for break
fast
**
the light faded in the afternoon
I was born in the city
when I look back
the streets are all the same
I tried this morning, hung over, to remember your face,
what we did together
where we went
there were buses and trains
I remember I had to wash three or four times a day
Mr Yu read Hölderlin to me
all anxieties left & joy spread over me
layer on layer
when I look back
my heart becomes manifest
it functions on that combinative axis
where walking
our paths criss-cross the vowels of a grid system
you were lithe & intelligent
& my experience scant
it wasn't clear then
that I would go on to invent
drainage & irrigation systems
Mr Yu had a way with people
some said he could move mountains
he certainly liked his Hölderlin
employing a cryptanalytic approach
to obscurantism and the tonal qualities
he said lay, he used the term deep cover
& sedimentation, beneath the surface structure,
much like the way a metro is timetabled,
yes, that's where you stood waving,
it was goodbye, outside 33rd St,
a hydrant gushed water
the faucet in my room,
your photo pinned to the wall reminds,
dripped water, sounded like a feng in the basin.
Note: Ancient Chinese is thought to have no labio-dentals, so "Feng" and "Ping'"would have sounded much the same
Page(s) 18-25
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