Ashley Bovan
Singularity
Singularity
The light here cuts black and white Wet morning sticks to air old walls Droplets grip like gelatine A gentle blur needs your earth. Where are you? They take what they take as done
They take what they take as done
with no contrary imagination as if the certainty of their recordable events gave a depth to their own superficiality This in no way offers an excuse, or amelioration, of consequence – it is as predictable, even dependable, as the knowledge of your next breath This heavy-handed colouration is ancient but let us not rally as heroes to some fantastic battle (from which our injuries would be severe and debilitating) Let us instead set our step to a rhythm and pace that casts aside all sensation of distance Let us cheer one another in comradeship for these minor inconveniences are no longer irritants Let us congregate in Great Halls and compel the orchestra to an enlivening tempo Let us cast off slough like spent clothing and with resounding freedom dance! Hopeless and Topless
Meet you down the Torchwood Tower, she said,
when I phoned her over a coffee from inside the Senedd. What colour is the wind today, she added, like a comedian, knowing full well that my synaesthesia was giving me gyp – so much so that I had to walk to Tesco Express and buy a Daily Mail. Shorty faux leopard-print coat, black liquid-look leggings, a black Alice band, flats, black. In a carrier bag: purple, clip-on, toy angel-wings (just purchased) – I note she didn’t bother to wear them to meet me. She’s been growing her hair long for ten years. I absolutely adore it – in an it’s OK way – but I can’t fool her. She shakes it and twirls it, lets the wind blow it on me, lets the sun highlight it – each shadow carefully, precisely, planned. She wants a coffee and I guess I’ll buy her one. Back in the Senedd it’s hot – but she won’t be taking her coat off. The Senedd is the building of the National Assembly for Wales on the waterfront in Cardiff Bay. He
is a hole
in the ground with a cover made of pages torn from odd magazines hardened and stuck together with self-abuse Maybe you’ll walk nearby get interested fall in After chewing your meat he’ll grind your bones into a coarse powder then hide you and forget you If you’re free tonight do come by
|
Thoughts bustle this pure still cityThoughts bustle this pure still city.
I'm remembering waves; remembering the way, unmoved, long ago; remembering busy sky. Fulmars smash centre, fly clear; the cross‐leaved spray, jagged, common sensuous, gull, sandpiper, transplanted; summer's only home. Spring just happiness away. Astral harbours, touched portals, redshank, still‐backed, golden knapweed, wrack‐heather, down stream squill, godwit dawn. Dear Honey-Love
wingstem paramour,
musk‐loving syrupy sugar‐bird, wild nectar mistress, caramel moon truelove, white sweet clover‐mead, herb‐cream treasure, rosebay‐willow sticky bun, Romeo's bee‐line, cherished sun‐bear, relished spoon‐flower, amber‐flamed love‐apple, hi If it was hot todayif it was hot today
I'd want to lie on my side in a brook and let the flowing water wash me shoulder to toes dissolve the mess send some nutrients to the physically smaller life-forms downstream I'd be stronger because lighter not 17 again and kicking down doors singing other people's songs but ready to start anew maybe a little more cautious this time maybe not Rivercraft
Spin-water curls
Rivercraft tie to trees The air is edged by swamp slurred with want Lime sap exudes from leaves plops sticky, smelly stains on the boardwalk traps grit and muck grabs the soles of the congregation the faithful who to and fro church Dewi Sant – transgressions stacked on parallax – baked, washed, recycled As always, hope, like a phantom, glides from deep into the light sky. Saturday Morning
Fat old bee
You stupid thing About the size of a golfball Sat on the mat By the backdoor Waiting to be let out and die You furry dopey thing I have to carry you to the garden on a take-away menu Junk-mail I’ve seen you all winter Crazy Tucking into the pollen of the winter flowering honeysuckle and now that it’s nearly April and warm you go and kick the bucket Oh well You drop off the menu and hide in the undergrowth slash weeds Later, I’m outside having a fag and there’s a new bee Slimmer Smarter Buzzier maybe your son or daughter Sometimes I wish I’d had children Melissa and notes
Safe
in a nice semi the dreamers’ daughter adopts a style steps out to use the train Cattle-truck men slobber up eyesful Lick her over until she shakes, clutches her heart but she’ll be OK after many journeys The rattled carriage grinds to stop Cage opens She flies |
Down by the Lake
Under a nearby weeping willow a flock of geese pad and poke
a push-chair rattles along Alice wipes mud from an off-green park bench
two bedlam kids squawking then she rests
Vicious seagulls hunt for sandwich fragments Exhaust fumes, and hums and grinds, from the morning
motor-rush waft over
Alice fidgets and then heads off to the rose gardens a discarded sheet of kitchen roll sticks to her shoe
The flowers sway like nodding dogs in the backs of cars She listens to echoing Greensleeves again and again piping out from the ice cream van over on the promenade
Up-wind an old boy fires up his acrid briar it’s time to move on
She takes the tarmac path around and up to the rockery A brittle crisp packet rattles, trapped in an exclamation- tasting the hint of salt blown in from the bay mark-like tree
She wanders through the patterns of rocks Her arms droop by her side
and she catches her hand on a clump of nettles Reluctantly, she prepares herself for the long walk home
a push-chair rattles along Alice wipes mud from an off-green park bench
two bedlam kids squawking then she rests
Vicious seagulls hunt for sandwich fragments Exhaust fumes, and hums and grinds, from the morning
motor-rush waft over
Alice fidgets and then heads off to the rose gardens a discarded sheet of kitchen roll sticks to her shoe
The flowers sway like nodding dogs in the backs of cars She listens to echoing Greensleeves again and again piping out from the ice cream van over on the promenade
Up-wind an old boy fires up his acrid briar it’s time to move on
She takes the tarmac path around and up to the rockery A brittle crisp packet rattles, trapped in an exclamation- tasting the hint of salt blown in from the bay mark-like tree
She wanders through the patterns of rocks Her arms droop by her side
and she catches her hand on a clump of nettles Reluctantly, she prepares herself for the long walk home
"Down by the Lake" was previously published in "The Cleave."