Some selections have been previously published in electronic media.
Originals 'beeswax,' 'alive,' 'apples,' 'the music hall,' 'hard cider,' 'leather,' 'five,' 'patterns,' 'strange,' 'tickle,' 'trojan,' 'voice' ' © copyright 1993; All by j. griogair bell
Printing History: This volume has not yet been printed.
All rights reserved. No part of this book nor of individual works may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, in use or yet to be invented, without permission in writing from the author.
dedicated to LGV JO
sequence
Beeswax liturgical deceptive miracle
virgin birth of demoniac angel
hard earning rights to penetrate
that mask I was the statue
greek and perfect tragic
love and worship cathedral
built on the slope of loving
imperfectly insurance of impermenance
designed to end in endings
planned to provide the escape
a returning ship to fill your lips
with sweet promise of careful
illusions ideal illusions illusions all
how conscious are you in that castle
of concussions?
a tired hand of twisted bone
lifted and rested on dry drum sound
clicking tick of time writing down
each tough in rhythm rhyme
structure without home and heart
of gold tied in holding tomes and
tombs of written thoughts inknots
of silver thread and red horizon
lines of disaster and hope for future
faster than the past crashing plaster
ceiling sound under-handed quilt
of lazy begging warmth and cuddles
bugs of faith and weird faithless
searching atheistic and mystic twist
embarassed with this life
a new self image of written muscles
and post adolescent troubles longing
an empathy notebook not there and fire
in the fireplace of smoke and charcoal
burned for this aweful place
worshipping monks with no faces
dripping over broken paces and the race
to finish this page in ink lace.
Gargantuan Anatomical Structures
libeling the underpining meaning
resurrection before death
death before life living rebirth
a resurfacing reason for the future
denial of past labarynthine
wandering
detached
unmatched imagination
bringing apples in lace
thru maze-like victorian corridors
spring time over lavender gazebo days
with light rain and laughing bees
undisciplined herb garden paths
rocks in circles, circles in circles
roads thru in and lined with trees
hedgerows like wrinkled foreheads
crop circumambulation
Leaf Face beside me
unlatched
garden lantern glowing
hands of an angel screaming
the sun thru the trees some
violent harvest hymn
twisting the light in night
bringing it in circles to me
moths' flight thru me
surrounding cupid fountain
glory and Leaf Face smiles
and angel hands delight me
underground
warmth sigh breathing
brilliant forearms blonde hair
feathers like angel winds
hold me handsome in trance
thru the air and candle dancing
in garden dreaming
forms in willows to follow
weeping sorrow with holding hands
and summer lands with Leaf Face
and my some time angel beside me
overgrown
fountain empty flowing
smoking amphitheatre centipedes
audience of absence
laying in ivy arms under tangled
arthritic trees while Leaf Face
and angel and glory laugh behind me
at mistaken dreams of me
and my three companions imaginary
The crashed interface of the old building; like the half demolished face of an heart-attack, paralyzed gaping hole facing the sky, an akimbo monument brained with cudgels for scalpels; stands, an open wound, for the vivisection of urban renewel, i n the shadow of huge corporate obelisks, offices dedicated to decication, to advancement and profit. The patient is comatose.
Pedestrians passed by with passing comment, pity in passing that erupted brain dead building. Once a proud upstanding member of the community, the Music Hall had become an isore. Everyone could remember the splendour and beauty of that erection's youth, the pounding rhythm and sweet melody of its glamourous vigour, tha t hulking corporate massive stomping had destroyed.
Raindrops hitting my forehead like jealous hands slapping, the cold hits like a fading visionary haze. Elephant gods and burning ruins, brier piles and bureaucratic upright files flashing flashbulbs in the lightning, random pictures in the rain.
Salty rain in runnels down my face as the red distance dances with Shiva over corpses in slow motion. Flames rage higher and higher over the hosts picking thru the bloody bodies. A flash of white elephant eyes fades my vision in the rain.
Slick streets under my feet as I walk home in the shadow of a once great building. Inside the building the barely noticed ghosts dance to old melodies in the corner of my sight.
two times a beautiful woman
enter entry fantasy
my own age and knowledge
she shows me gymnastics
or rather I tumble for her
in the sixties of silence
we ride in ugly buses
and that damned new job
again in silence
where's that back
massage empty space?
what's this in my hand
is that a bottle I see
before me I must finish
warm forehead
blushed face
two times a beautiful woman
with unknown taste
hard cider thighs
I wonder if poetry
changes people ...
they offered us flowers in the morning
on brown bottle headstones
bodies and corpses made of leather
you tried to tell me it was better
but it wasn't
I slept beside you
I watched you, your lips moving
in the dark
I wanted to kiss you feather lightly
but I didn't
sweet hot water for drinking
in the morning freshness
and winter cold water for swimming
in the afternoon stillness
vista distance and silence
wind waves in grass
fair to faire to faerie
circle drum love in the dark
I saw you dancing
I wanted to dance too
but I didn't
but I didn't
bruise drum finger
ambient blushing figure
that I did
but I didn't
lean over and kiss you
no fears of you
but still I didn't
she tells me that she cannot have who she wants but who is it that that I am not? some contest of constants between my shadow and my self, winning is not part of the game. the winner is the loser same as every time before. the competition between the main and the sublime turns to the games of the blind smashing the lame. bruises in principle the foundations of the analogous redemption. fiery prometheus is in chains of charcoal self imolation.
and my last five seductions ended with my own hand consolation of self love. from the most recent into the history of my emptiness, she has what she had no more but had me before. she is still in love with another in another place. she never falls in love with nice guys for in understanding they fail to feel the security of armour against viciousness. she has found another more alike to her falling reincarnation of body and hallucination. she has in interest lacked interest in the worry of my desire constantly worrying her to touch me.
five futures that future forgives them, but present troubles condemn instead of them me to fabulous dreams that fail. the future gives them the romantic ending to my no exit escape.
five seductions, two containing love, in commerce with nothing above I trade the memory for release, but like a circus the three rings entangle the five of me in romantic dreams of angels and failed futures with succubi.
none of them I shall ever touch again, knowing that I am unclean I leper toward the failure of my own model of honor when I reach toward them
one of five I have held in my head, her wings beating against my fluttering eyelids. her feathers replaced some other of the five only some time ago.
and now I cannot let go.
so many times unrealized patterns envelope me
imprisoned in the literature of my emotional need
sending faintly scribbled demands for attention
cyphers and languages and combinations
designed for catharsis, drawn smeared grammar
justice predjudiced blindly handing down karma
well made and well sealed in waxen signet sigils
signaling my semi-metaphorical slip toward hell
some silent last serenade with prayers before dying
a bargain for completion with myself before dying
catharsis in futile flowers and reluctant razor blade kisses
good night caresses across faces of good morning godesses
kisses for a gift of god and for that god herself
I'll no longer try to earn what I am denied with curses
that of which I am not worthy like clockworks of strife
her holy pattern of meticulous menstruation promise of life
and renewed losses in bloody endings and castrations
cutting what it seems I never had enough to audition
for that imaginary image of manhood she needs in order to love
I cannot provide acceptance to outlive enduring life
proudly pounding down the last little bitter bit
invented inside a lost and lonely anguished alphabet
a forgotten lover language we willfully made to share
in foreign fatigued dictionaries defiantly shelved shelves there
holding hallowed symbols and rituals devices bizarre
laughing dancing heuristic tongue engines reality square
circle line define the waxed entranced paper page
marker paisley hidden final allegorical romantic phrase
6
4
how strange to see your face,
look in her eyes
summer nights under stars
with you, with her
laying next to me, you
and her memory
reminding where I am
and where I've been
fingers wrapped around yours
hers around mine
my lips touch you perfect
her lips on mine
arms entangled around
she tangles me
how strange to see your face,
look in her eyes
She has a curve that tickles
I can't quite remember
the memory is on the tip
of my tongue.
Trojan horse humor
to lubricate the receptacle ended
bitter biting pill with the smug
smile of innocent smeg tilting
in the lists like yellow coated
journalism or poppsychological
skit so frenetic acting
against the solid core
alchohol induced pity pour
another glass and drink
your medicine down
dispensing the vile virtual
virtually real victual meal
digging into the bottle of
pain pills pick out the one
to swallow or force down that
throat another harsh pill for horses
back masked instructions
on that hand written label
lead me to believe you
don't know what you do
you swallow those pills
with other peoples' throats
thinking in hypercondriautomatic
attack you are healthy
after all you aren't the patient
of the medicine you prescribe
that humor is malignant
and maligning
that mask is slipping
the faustean deals you
laid out for us on
procrustean tables
all the while smiling
have become vacuous
and the vacancy sign on your mind
has told us the fate of your draw
deny that demon his due
we are not yet lost
and there is no reason to
drag us down with you
arrow error in chaos attraction
finds the mark more accurately
so holds the force of familiarity
between two ages golden and
god forsaken age meeting in
chambers of cherish and
secret so much
withholding warmth flowing
in to the form of giant steps
slow motion flowers between
each and every romantic stride
fantastic tumbling summer inside
well-formed steps tho they are
focus on scenes of perfect pairs
and always
the hero heros her
and always the lover lovers her
always the ending one or another
already youth remembers
the silent absence
of your tears, another
day of dreams between
too many years, where
is your voice?
where is your voice?
silent moments and clever
cliches dismantling my
fear of that moment with
any sound at all any sound
at all.
Who's little girl marching
step step missteping
meeting me on streets of smiles and summer
trials with the evidence
of my girlfriend daughter
notes and careful lies?