Lines Written In A Derelict Pub After Reading Fifty Pages of Ali Smith and Drinking Very Unsavoury Tea Indeed

no pluck for the duck 

no good for the goose

no rain for the crane

no swim for the swan

 

I CHALLENGE YOU TO A GAME OF DARTS

dart this word and that verb

no dart for a fart

no nothing for a farthing

 

I CHALLENGE YOU

I FEAR YOU

go AWAY

 

in that pond of words

of stale ideas and sour words

a pond of nothingness

A VIOLIN GOES BERSERK YES A VIOLIN GOES BERSERK

and I'm

drunk on tea

Sonnet d’octobre

 

la c

 

hat

 

te allongée au sol

eil d’oc

tobre attend sobre

 

ment d’un œil verm

eil—doc

tement hier

 

o

 

glyphi-

que—que le c

iel d’Oc

 

citanie devienne un

 

lac

 

 

 

In praise of C.B.

(in the manner of e.e.c.)

 

so as we cel

ebrate (not over tea

) the newly-named tea

cher we cher

ish

 

is h

er summ

er summ

oned, that we cel

ebrate over beer

(not over tea

(not overdrunk)

) ?

Sept Crocus

It was a sweet face, and was well set off by the sky-blue of the farthingale, which, with her white lace coif and white ruff, gave her something the air of a speedwell flower, more especially as her expression seemed to have caught much of Cecily's air of self-restrained contentment. 

She began humming to an almost inaudible accompaniment on the piano :

Soft are the hands of Love,

soft, soft are his feet

They stand apart, so cold and hard amid the stirring hope and joy that are throbbing all around them.

I can hear my steps

and the clink of coins in one pocket

and the distant hush of the sea.

There was the possibility that the murderer had done this, and had afterwards escaped by the window.

And aloof and dark the mountains stared unconcernedly seawards.

CHAPTER THE FIRST

 

Inverted commas would help. Are inverted commas quotation marks? I never know. I said I never know. I said I never knew. I said I never knew or know whether inverted commas are the same as quotation marks. But they’re not. I know or knew they’re not. Whatever. Whether. I wrote whether inverted commas are the same as quotation marks. Inverted commas would help. (Or quotation marks.) Italics would help. (Or inverted commas.)

 

CHAPTER TOGETHER

Whatever the weather let’s spend the day together. A day out together.
The weather and they say the weather.
They wither saying the weather is like. Saying what is the weather like. What is the weather like? Is it likely that they said what is the weather like? And did they like the weather?
Did they wither saying? Did they wither saying the weather. They said whatever the weather let’s spend the day out altogether. All together.
Is all together altogether the same? Is all together altogether the same as altogether? Italics would help.

Italics would help. Inverted commas would help. Italics or inverted commas would most certainly help.

A Novella Fuck You

Je viens de retrouver, dans les fichiers de notre antépénultième ordinateur, ou plutôt sur une disquette, le texte d’un bref roman amorcé puis avorté, inspiré par les écrits les moins abordables de Gertrude Stein. Cette novella, qui s’intitule A Novella Fuck You, fut écrite en quelques jours de désoeuvrement, en janvier 2003. (Je constate avec amusement, d’ailleurs, que la date de dernière modification du fichier est le 29 janvier 2003 ; cela ne s’invente pas.)

 

Je publierai les brefs chapitres de cette novella, chaque matin à sept heures, puis, si l’humeur m’en reprend, en écrirai la suite.