dedicatory assart

46

(for Sharon & Paul)

To run out of rymans singing
its so sunny in my cunny
hazel the weather is not important
if your only home.
Knock knock me list no longer or
I may no more
thrash you like a doorbell.
Ring ring I lost my time.
If I put my finger in a second line
you know I did
put her hand up first.
Once there were three million bears
overnight
three million sums or cums or light

The Collars of Johan de Wit - no. 2

a mid may assart

45

Here on the air base
I rarely see young hazel
& her giant guns.
Bonjour constable
we hath only adjusted rymans
for love
of aerial bombardment
& the smell of burning
smaller branches.
How shall I then leave hazel I do intend
soon after the time of
constable I arrive?
How shall I then leave hazel, rymans,
half its branches are alive?

Xing the Line, May 7, 2009

Xing the Line yesterday featured Richard Parker and Gareth Farmer, both writing (up) theses at Sussex University, Richard on Zukofsky and Pound, Gareth on Veronica Forrest-Thomson. Two very different readings - Gareth confident, measured, punctilious, using to my ears what seemed like a long line; Richard by contrast hesitant, nervy, elliptical, echoes of Zukofsky apparent but with humour. The highlight for me was his "Heaney to Waterstones" [sic?] which was a hilarious take (surely) on the opening of Zukofsky's "A"-15 which begins "An/hinny/by/stallion/out of/she-ass...He neigh ha lie low h'who y'he gall mood..." Richard is putting together a mag called Crater which features some of Gareth's work and Gareth's sequence "Mock into the Brazen Day" is coming out with yt communications over the summer. One of the longer poems Richard read last night ("The Egg"?) will appear, I understand, in the next onedit.

Some pics below...

Richard Parker

Gareth Farmer

Laurie Duggan

Antony John & Edmund Hardy

Tim Atkins

Richard Parker's trainer

2 Ts

etc

44

(for Harry Godwin)

red like the red deer I mean
I know where is an hind
right here in an line
I am a bad red deer
& dropped its balls
chasing poetry beaver
through the fields of england
ken I love another too poor
deirdre the middle ages
exploded in her hands o
the brilliant poets in britain
black dots ate my readers wives
dear deirdre hello its 1360 AD
every day since the internet I died