Microsoft Word - Barnes_poems.doc Copyright © 2007 Christopher Barnes and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 Poems Christopher Barnes Imminent Arrest Ken dolls in superoxide coats, Propellered hats, jostling-lead gloves - Not a riot-run of delicate distinctions From The Others. A middlemost set. Brisk-casual, faces unsolved. They’re figuring, Sure-footed at sweeping along In digitally unbending lines, Wire-pulled cruelly by The Fist (Electrified vertical rods.) Nowhere veiled on C-deck, Nor in the Parking Orbit. We make for Upset Sea And its transparent tunnel. Imposed Regimes “Mr. Dregs these photographs are anti-types, I’ll kiss the book. A dragnet of 52 Urban Gardens. He supplants the scene to a pencilled sun Haloing the window. A shutter-release billiard room, Junk landing, framed kitchenette. In shift-lens A next-to-nothing subbasement, A fishtank of foolscap. A telephoto zoom To a stone dead personal bodyguard On the floor. (From the Spooks poems) Christopher Barnes Copyright © 2007 Christopher Barnes and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 2 Imprint The moon-squint flickered On the lake’s spine Where once a monster Laughing with grassed teeth Frolicked like a much loved child Before a time when we danced Like quick-footed tadpoles Over rock tops Impromptu Gypsy Tangles Slap-bang along the airwaves New flamenco pitapats In taprooms, saloons, mazy lanes. Picasso would have chinked out Jiggling to pluck-beats Tapas in hand, dosi-doing from bar to bar, Would have squelched umpty primers Into sunset, Smearing palette with matador gore. We see no clued-up vignette, No brush of charka, No “tasks of youth leagues” chapbooks. Just a blow of bulls in Pamplona, A carnival of beelzebubs, monkey-monsters, No-holds-barred tomato hurling rackets, Open-matchbox verandas, smouldering pebbles, Handkerchief headed English, Seven seas of concrete. (From the Castles in Spain poems) Christopher Barnes Copyright © 2007 Christopher Barnes and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 3 “In My Room The Sick Junky Shivers On The 7th Day” A bust of Trotsky And the abc of vascular diseases Warming pages. You breaths hot Around the room, Crocidillia, a leather doctor; We side up In the wiles of an unhurried hour Waiting for life to stir. Cell membrane is outer boundary; A kiss is dry flowers. Then the playground, The pine bed. Inhaled as vaporous light You tiptoe through this pageant All things loosened. Sharp little cracks, You might even make it back Finding your head Upon the pillow. In The In-Rep Digs O Krishna O Krishna O Krishna The wall-eyed lovie Sets to rest chants, Plain-sailing breaths In meditation, Buoyed up for a goodnight widdle. Twilling the cistern wall A ruffle of wide-spread millipede. Black. In a swivelly-peek She lets him slip Christopher Barnes Copyright © 2007 Christopher Barnes and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 4 With the contact lens. O Krishna O Krishna O Krishna Sleep runs away. Dreamland’s flinch-riddled, Cold feet stirring blood. A third-eye brow Ripples hems on her head Groping for a homely spot. She quacks hysterical, Calling in tongues The enlightened spirit Of transcendental browbeating.