postscript

OK, yes, it's ended. Just below in fact.

As I keep saying, please give me your responses to this sequence, or I shall fear the worst . . .

If you have just arrived at the blog at this point, you could either graze on it until something takes your fancy, or you'll find a link to the first poem in the Pages listing, and you can work start reading or grazing from there.

At the moment, I think I'm likely to also blog the sort of continuation to this, A Second Age. It may well be done separately form this blog - especially as I discovered once I'd already begun that Firefox gets all uppitty at Blogger's layout code. Let me know if you would be interested in being notified when I start posting this sequence (I'll use the list I have been emailing to over  this - but if you're not on it - let me know - or, indeed, if you want to be taken off it - no more!!!). Email me at peter@greatworks.org.uk.

100+8. This Didn’t Ought to Be Like This; But It Is, of Course

Café Belgique, January 7, 2013

“In my created head I don’t exist

As rising bed-heavy the mist

Is fixed though always full of surprises

And the world in my eyes

Is hardly a certainty”

Howe, p 13

Well, the recipe for cold noodles comes up here, I suppose, so I’ll let it. Very simple – just boil the noodles – rice noodles best – leave to cool, dress with a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil & rice vinegar (some slivers of ginger in it & of course cut up little chillies), plus chopped spring onions, just blanched beansprouts, some cold cooked chicken shreds, a little dried shallot, maybe coriander leaves, that sort of thing. Light & refreshing, OK?

Not much more, really. If you want to know how many words, you can count them.

I’m not going to.

Eat well; join together; resist strongly

we might be OK yet.

At the last text

- unfalsifiable

true to tell

anything can be

Living fluid

Bathing in diurnity

A poet in words

A maggot in pus

- eat away at corruption

  to cleanse the wound

  that is our being

Il naso della pecora sente il precepizio

Time to finish the coffee now

look out

         at the still, dark river

the damp slabbed bulk of the mill beyond

- time to break down

                     again

“Winter tones are rose & glass

the sun as false as all nostalgias

If this world isn’t good enough for us

then an afterlife won’t be enough”

Howe, p 81

100+7. How Many Words?

feeding bodies

feeding minds

all delicious

that’s good

let’s go

each time

the same

yet ev’ry

time different

why not

let it

happen so

rituals and

landscape and

various spices

all set

for profit

the girls

[laugh] [coughing]

yeah, yeah

let’s have

another word

like chance

like share

like sheen

so many

so much

[no reply]

the history

of the

roman popes

proof of

that huge

rich variety

human lives

& what

a fucker

god is

(if he

ever did[1]

nice inside

done up

across the

road it

makes sense

at last

in stories

I believe

the milk

boils over

not my

fault really

not again

kids really

seriously no

who can

mind it

thank you

[laugh again]

I’m amazed

though at

my stamina

some chance

it may

go on

until yes

the end

you know?

more pronouns

then more

feasts too

to share

more riots

to fan

upset power

and change

our lives

some slower

more constructive

just to

ignore the rules

like here

a little dangerous

not really

only a

good start then

to build together

better

how many words?

as many as

you choose

you need

you share

---

[1] He is

isn’t he

when it

comes down

to it

something that

we inflict

upon ourselves

don’t have to

do we?

100+6. Inward Flourishes

What we’re talking about’s more like landscape

Laying itself before us as we travel through

Its stones & stories are the world around and

In

It’s like a ritual – no not a perfected one

Binding us to death, but improvising to give power

Let us move freely & loosely, OK then

Flourish

Yes, deny and riot, even burn

But build at once, replacing things

By people & what we need to live well and

Flourish

Even feast: on curry pie, cold noodles

Anything too the children love who now range freely

Truly nourished & nurtured fully outside and

In