hi bill here is an experimental poem. i'm not sure if u or Charlie would like it. i certainly would be interested in any feedback, to see if it matches my own reservations. the premise is that poets have always made reference to eyes and they pride themselves on reporting what they see. as they all have unique voices and are placed at different points in history, i attempted to mimic the style of particular poems of poets from around the world to critique the different perspectives of 'what is seen' by people in a vignette-style arrangement of commonplace scenarios and bigger political scenarios. because of the mimetic agenda of the poem, i am only connected to it in a cerebral way, which leaves me feeling somewhat ambivalent about whether or not it works. feel free to go rampant with any criticism u may have (if any). i do not have a problem with that. there is plenty of other work i can send u if this is not to your taste.kind regards - jayne  A Compendium of Eyes ……..And eyes big love-crumbs (e.e.cummings) i like your small bones and thighs of glass cases. Such intricate woven strands of light. Fibres brighter and glaze warm. i like your small fingers. i like their flare, i like their smooth. i like to watch their sparks on my body and its bones, and the sparkling - pat tter (ns) which snap along nerve after nerve sharp, i like feeling the dark and light of you, i like, slowly stroking the sudden edge of your cool (ed) molten skin, and the this-goes-here command of your flesh….. and possibly I like the cast look of you dappling over me   My guts the strings of my eyes…..(TS Eliot, Ash Wednesday)Lady, three white foolish myths shatter the cool tomorrowIn the blue layer of feeling, hunger transparentHandmade stomach heart and liver, containing the hunger In a starving hard commitment. And work ethic said Sell me your bones. sell me Their contents or I will demand compensation. And the chirping glass structures (which were eternally vacant) Said: because of the foolishness of this Lady And because of her hungry orbs, and because Of her mouth full of silica We pour forth our pockets of glittering shardsAccept the sand of oblivion, and fractureIn the immensity of this gilded and blasted rule of hornTo which we offer our gutsAnd the translucent strings, attached to our indigestible timeWhich the tongues forget but the flesh remembers As a cruel hour, as only the cruellest hoursAre pared to a union of driftwood and myrrh And other ridiculous forget me not games Heavy with circuses and bread, and games of chance. That rattle in hourglass stomachs and heads. And work ethic said Do not grieve for the poor lazy sods heavy with famine What they surrender is yours for the taking. The bones opened their translucent valves and playedTalk and grow richPull any stringsBe the greatestLiving salesmanOr the greatestDead salesmanCreate wealth without wealth Without heartBut with stealthTerminate competitorsAnd their homesFeel satisfiedOr unsatisfiedAs long as it paysAnd you payWith or withoutYour stomachYour heartOr your liverGrace to goldAnd the endlessPursuit of profitIn cool shattering tomorrows where bones play whitening songsThe blueness sets in invisibly, and the myths grow largerThan the original myths and the keeper of the myths, LadyMerchandising, forgets her intention to donate.By the flecks and glitter of industrial diamonds, bythe laws of addition, subtraction and multiplicationShe steals. She takes. And they have lost their inheritance.In faith I doe not love thee with mine eyes (Shakespeare, sonnet cxli)In taste I could not love you with my eyes. Your face is a nervous cracking vessel And your heart a cracking yellowing blindThat bangs with pain against a rotting sill,While your voice aggravates my nerves like fever. You are as tender as glass, and as kindAs an adored and battered piece of furniture That presses its patterns against my thighs And surrenders itself to my troubles.I would not have you any other way For you remain utterly smashable, In your glass splendour, and ivory days.
There is nothing but love beyond reason That can make me fear and love this treason.
Dark deadly eye……. (Ted Hughes, Thrushes) Terrifying are the nervous bleak gulls among the rocks Here, soiled keeled claws scratching -- a foiled Stark kitten paw, shrunken and glaring Covered with glassy splinters -- with a curious hunger Overtaking the fear of cats and anything to do with their purring. Claws completely preoccupied with maiming, round Upon the desolate shrivelled amputation, Full of fright and hunger.There are not enough one legged gulls in this sandySpit full of tourists, though, by the bar, are crutchesLeaning against memories of shrapnel and rope,Fishing inner pain that once had a meaning.Now hunger flocks to a stench of shrivelled amputated pawStiff and shining in its aluminium nest:Clutched around a snatch of old yellowing feathersAnd pieces of scalp. Voices in a glasshouse slur with heroism and lies,Truths exaggerated and understatedDepending upon the man and how rewardingYears have been or become, since the great yearsStored in the limb. The one with the rim of felt around its edgehowScreeching and hungry and curious those white capped headsBent around a foil-cradle dropped by the shore.How splintered they appear.  The orange pumpkins have no eyes. (Sylvia Plath, Poem For A Birthday (Who))The night of quarrelling’s begun. The verb’s in,Swallowed or sprayed. The men are snarls.Unloading their stores of spirits. This bar’s rusting with riveted eyes:Screeching, stalking, busted buttsOf stubbed out neurones in glass capped lids. Enter a moony cataract.A strip of gauze, stickingIrises inside the brain. If only these images would stop rewinding.Memory a jamming door. Days a series of tunnels.Life a boulevard of slaughter.  Scalps are shiny in this light.Age spots fray and bleed at the edge:The toughest medals of all. Tumbling in cliffs of cheery melting icebergs.The sleek lines of arctic birds full of anti-freeze.Their claws soft as gunpowder. O the warmth of denial!The room is full of smoked glass eyes.Outside the gulls screech and shit on the windowsill. Now it is Hitchcock.A penguin with a cameraTying gulls to their shoulders. Mothers, tie their children’s mouthsShut. Fathers learn to smoke cigars and say nothing.Poker machines turn on rows of pecking red. One said: don’t stare dear, and close off your ears.Dragging lumpy blubber childAway from the phosphate piles at their heels. The sandcastles crumble to shapeless mounds.The men open their rusting bunker lips.Out of their gape pours wing after melted wing.  Kita adalah manusia bermata sayu, yang di tepi jalan        "We are the people with sad eyes, at the edge of the road" (Taufiq Ismail, the republic is ours) There is always a choice. We can’tAcceptThe glittering facade of wealthAnd retain our soil. Should we march in burningSmoke and its charcoaled grinsOr eat off a floorOf scorched forest earthWith fat officialsWho graze our future like goats. There is always a choice. We can’tAcceptOr fear losing, when we have already lost courageAnd wisdom and security.We are no longer in controlOf anything except our struggle and own survival In the face of floods, drought, exchange rates, crime and suicideAnd a puzzling reputation for affluenceThat our children are forced to believe.There is always a choice. We can’tAccept.  and my barred eyes (James Gleeson, Demolition of a Palace)Not a case ofa cannon or a star ride,in this silence more potent than wordsand clear:and acetonein its refusal todebatewhile shrinking to otherness(as the script of your flesh attestsand insistsupon this part)stumbling around thewrong lines for my voice,while you and your shadowswait. Three sistersplanning a nightmare.  Eyes to eyes (Members Of The Family, Vincente Huidobro)Street to streetSky to skyGive me your moneyI can’t give youI’m all pins and glue Car to carEarth to earthGive me the right of wayI can’t give youI’m the path’s keeper. Shop to shopSun to sunGive me your glitteringI can’t give youI’m time’s mother Wound to woundLake to lakeGive me your questionI can’t give youI’m blood’s sister. Toe to toeTree to treeGive me your altitudeI can’t give youI’m the sky’s martyr Tremor to tremorsDirt to dirtStrip to stripEye to eyeThe garden of anger has Siamese rootsPushing through ruins of hope in clustersRhizomes in a parade of tendrilsSqueezing the days densely into our skin. As a man feels linked / To his eye. (Brecht; We Have Made A Mistake)You were supposed to reflect lightAnd heat, not these witheringPale, disjointed dashes. You were supposed to have reasonedBeyond the inspector’sBlow it upAccount. Were not expected to haveMoral fibre, though youLinked hypocrisyTo your lips. Your espionage lacked subtlety.Your video imageA dissolving screenAnother makeover, another cryFor reason, expectingFrom others, everything you weren’tPrepared to give.Where is the manBehind that look of incredulity? - trash in the world’s eyes (Bruce Dawe; for both of you)Suddenly the view from this year became too muchof a pin prick. A range of dull foggy greensovercrowdingthe fauna, and it was easy to strapthat zoom-lens telescopeto the barrel of vision, its adjustable blacka frame for a future held in the scopeof a tiny patterned circleof evolution, while back in layers of glossa reflection burns under the chin, as yearsof sucking water lay rigid beneathpink curling lines of cells, and only the oilysmudges of pathcan prove this year was inhabitedby more than an eye strapped to a lens Jayne Fenton Keane