(prompted by I. THE THREE METAMORPHOSES – Thus Spake Zarathustra, A Book for All and None by Friedrich Nietzsche)

~

~

I

This conceptism. And as we are constructing, there is suffixism for building further towers. Who would have thought that in a global lockdown, Racism should be the one to reassert the primacy – how its virus is the enduring disease. Unable to get past the G&C album [mint condition sleeve; excellent condition vinylism]. Is it a running out of ideas to state etceteraism, as if any other composition – playful or insidious – would be as meaningful? Another question: is this a grand narrative or gibberish? I want to ask, but won’t pose as such, how the apparent neutrality of an ism attached to race cannot have / add / possess / be the maker of the ideology, though framing it in a world of thinking seems preposterous. Imagine the synonyms for Trumpism. Ism / ism / ism / ism / ism as a rhythm in a poem’s way of life.

II

state life to
the virus condition

and building
insidious ideas there;

as disease, it is the
condition attached to ism,

ideology maker
and framing;

a preposterous
narrative is racism

constructing a race
as conceptism;

thinking cannot
possess a poem’s

enduring, the
lockdown of rhythm

III

In want, we cannot have a lockdown
of the unable as the virus will ask
what we want and all we will have is
the question. Would disease ever be
meaningful, framing synonyms for its
neutrality? It is constructing a life
condition, the primacy of enduring,
and to imagine etceteraism is when
running to the towers, as preposterous
as thinking this the race to a global
narrative of rhythm. Imagine a state of
insidious building where the ideology
is a virus composition: to add suffixism
with what we possess in a conceptism.

(Image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand)

From my collection Wherever the Stone is Awake, a collection of found ‘ars poetica’ in a range of writers’ work, this from Lawrence Ferlinghetti

As a tribute to the great man and poet, I am re-posting my ‘apology’ written for him regarding a tame interpretation I once gave about his Two Scavengers poem.

So this is also to the tens of thousands of students who studied his poem and understood its illustration of the inequitites of the world we live in, especially the ‘great’ democracies, and who know nothing has changed.

It would depend on where and when, but I’d want a Rand McNally
from a gas station somewhere just outside of Omaha heading north
if I wanted to find Niobrara today;

or an OS Explorer at a small shop in Coniston to confirm
I was nowhere near the best way of getting to Ennerdale and see Crag
Farm once again nestled at the foot of its fell;

and whatever German equivalent there was for guiding us to the
Taunus mountains near Frankfort as teenagers, just to convince those
Polezie we’d planned to camp when found lost in a town,

yet never this misnomer for a figurative sketch
as if an actual route rather than wing and prayer to reach from here
to there before reminded of the indefensible loss.

Build [i]
at least 250 metres away from
any well, borehole or spring

supplying drinking water
or water for use at farm dairies
(out of empathy).

One genuine standard
for a pet cremation is
the burn.

Human, but
epitaphs in any language
of your choice.

The Mongrel Mausoleum
is considered a woke edifice
these days.

Dignified services
for those
anthropomorphised.

The Green ones
are marked
with a shrub.

And [ii]
more than 200 metres away from any Site of Special Scientific Interest,
like burial ground.

The Fish
Final Farewell is a
fluid finish.

That family buried
next to their pets take sentimentality
to an absurd level of belief.

This is a lovely presentation of my prose poem collection ‘Aeons of Upheaval’ by Canadian small press Trainwreck. The editor John C. Goodman took great care with editorial decisions on overall content and close scrutiny of individual prose poems, making many wise recommendations. I am most pleased to have such a clean and neat production of this work.

John has recently encountered personal loss and a significant impact on his life, work on his press suspended while he dealt with this. Still facing further personal uncertainty, the press is once more up and running. If you felt you could support him by having a look to buy one or more of his publications, considering mine naturally [!], I am sure it would be appreciated. All money for any purchases goes to the press.

Here’s a reading of one of my poems from this collection:

‘Aeons of Upheaval’ can be purchased here.