A SECOND SET OF WET CEMENT POEMS AT THE SAME TIME A SECOND READING. (CF. http://ulamanifest.blogspot.com/2008/09/from-manchester-uk-john-g-hall-one-of.html ) THATS WHAT POETRY IS ABOUT ....
Biography
John G.Hall - Manchester Poet & Editor of Citizen32, publications include Orbis, Iota, Rain Dog
, The Wolf, Coffee House Poetry, The Ugly Tree, Carillon, Outlaw, Left Curve(usa), Square Lake(usa), Spume, Aesthetica, Brittle Star, Harlequin, Monkey Kettle & Fire.Performs his poetry throughout the North West , mixing militant politics & biting humour with touching visions of childhood, love and football. The live recordings of his ant-war trilogy 'And Still I Cannot Wake From Their War' were recently bought by Drexel University,Philadelphia,USA.
Wet Cement Poem No:6 (a bankers tale)
The throne room of cash is empty but for a skull with a bullet hole
and a diamond collared dog lapping at the pool of his master's blood,
while in a corner of the Pentagon the Stars and Stripes spontaneously
combust and the ghost of Jimi Hendrix pisses lighter fuel onto the flag.
JGH©2008
Wet Cement Poem N:5
we stake the world on youth and beauty
surely no one would pull a knife across perfect skin
surely no one would pour lies into such fine china ears
surely no one would puncture the bubbles of their dreams
surely no one would drop explosives on such fine bones
surely no one would rape these Pre-Raphaelite faced angels
surely no one would steal the ancient ground from it's people
surely no one would electrify the diamond spider web of a mind
surely no one would blow open the Sistine chapel of the skull
surely no one would dare nail the body of love to a money tree
surely no one would blind fold the blind man or dam the damned
surely no one would pay the rich to be rich and punish the poor
surely no one would leave the torturers to their own devices
surely one day we will show them the instruments of justice
surely no one would object to the hanging of their heads.
jgh© 2008
Wet Cement Poem No:4
I am the hounded slave; I wince at the bite of dogs,
the sound of the cataracts of cash machines echo
I sit and look out on all the sorrows of the world
and on all oppression and shame, I run with blood
afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road
the human traffic burns through the metal rain
absorbing all to myself and for this song, I drink
bottled beer and lime and text instead of talk,
I have heard what the talkers were talking, and
vowed to write up and down these boulevards,
I will sing the song of companionship, of the
opposition of each heart to the murder of love,
to the maddening of minds, to dreams genocide,
all these I feel or am, all these call out for songs,
I am the hounded slave; I wince, turn and sing.
JGH©2008-09-20
*Every other line is from Walt Whitman
Wet Cement Poem No:3
they reckon birth may hurt babies
they say life is worth every penny
they believe the working class do not exist
they tell this to shop workers and nurses
they take the proof of our silent witness
they stare through the television screen into us
they trace each thought back to its owner
they rig the trail of life with sticky pleasure
they laugh at the poor behind their backs
they pin down the butterfly inside you
they pull the wings from your genius
they find starving people then feed them war
they have decided to counterfeit everything on the face of the earth
they reckon love is a rumour spread by dirty rotten communists.
jgh©2008
Wet Cement Poem No:2
the road pours me into the city machine
the fire damaged man sells me his bad news
the live wires suit themselves in culture cafes
the show houses play Les Miserables for laughs
the bar maids cry pints of crocodile tear liquor
the happy skull smiles of the living shine brightly
and the city machine passes me like a hot beer-shit.
.
jgh©2008
Wet Cement Poem No:1
from crashing waves find your answers
burn holes in paper tigers with ember tongues
be a red angel flying on swept back blue wings
carry a dove spangled banner in the midst of battle
touch a strangers pain at least once a day with your eyes
leave a trail in wet cement where your mind wandered
hide secret things, leave false clues, become unsolvable,
find undiscovered lands, burn the maps, pray not to be found.
jgh©2008
The Overcrowded Mind (for those who hate Myspace)
too many fingers in your pie
too many strangers in your mind,
too many cooks to your broth
too many second hand opinions,
too many shame faced shamans
too many spies on your secrets,
too many tongues in your cheek
too many guests at your feast,
too many double agents
too many doppelgangers,
too many sugars in your tea
too many spoons stirring you,
too many waiters in your cafe
too many fingers in your till,
too many beans in the coffee
too many crumbs of comfort,
too many unbelievers
too many unfaithful,
too many demi-lovers
too many semi-sisters,
too many baby brothers
too many mother fuckers,
too many fingers in your pie
too many baring you in mind,
too many non-special offers
too many basement bargains,
too many nosey neighbours
too many twitching curtains
too many keeping notes
too many stealing souls,
too many half cocked Buddha's
too many prying myspace eyes,
too many certain they are certain
too many truths told not be lies
too many fingers in your pie.
john g.hall©2008
Childish Thought
You don’t find no answer with your mind
only the mind trying to find the mind,
the vital answer has no vital question
it’s never been asked by mortal being,
there is no wise domain to live inside
only strange lands demanding maps,
the self can lie as well as any other
no sense can tell the truth all ways,
some people sit tight in the storm
some people move to Coney Island,
some people forget that words can fail them
some people remember all the ways to forget,
I think the universe is bigger than that
I think I’ll boldly go as far as flesh can,
my death will place me one day into an ivory box
my mind a fossilized collection of dead thoughts,
yet if I see a drowning friend in a rough sea
I do not wait for them to learn how to swim,
I throw them the happy ending of my long tether
show them the way I learned my crazy free style,
then sit eating my own Coney Island candy floss
while they swim out on their own sweet milky way.
John.G.Hall©2008
This is my diatribe
This is my diatribe making my space the only place of community
This is my diatribe making American war thought walk my streets
This is my diatribe making paper educated guesses into prejudices
This is my diatribe making Yankee gangster rappers poor people's masters
This is my diatribe making the drug of guns turn our children into toy soldiers
This is my diatribe taking Hollywood's unholy words as their new electro gospels
This is my diatribe making children without wings, making love without peace.
This is my diatribe against old powers making our new imprisonment invisible
This is my diatribe against the cash card manacles of money's all consuming madness
This is my diatribe against the doomed search for human power through violence.
This is my diatribe against the hopelessness of fear and shame and the thirty pieces
of silver dollars jingling in my dead soldier boys pockets and the I-pod god hanging
from my red neck and the fascist wolf whistles raping my girl friends angelic ear lobes
and the evil preacher men preaching against men loving men or women loving women
or any body loving any body and the rich bashing the ragged of the race and the
squeezing of our bones for our marrow and the rich lips sucking out our sweet souls
and replacing it with bloody warehouses of bloody things that no true human being
ever needs and the white war against the black world going on and on without end.
This is my diatribe and I love them.
John G.Hall©2007
The poor love as well as the rich
my brain is nervous with the night, my animal spirits are hunting
prey in my William Morris wallpaper forests, the black optics of fantasy
spilling into both our dreams, you hold in the dark practicing alchemy
and though I know you will never ask me, my manic touch questions
your flesh, my fingers ticking every correct answer, you wet me with
your soft corrections, we scream through the bedrooms brickwork,
two ruddy ghosts full of Easter's Catholic purple, our mouths slipped
with cinnamon, two sensitive bloods damned up by the gentle tourniquet
of love, my fingers caress your fine fur, you become a painted pony, and
while you tattoo my bones with your salmon tongue, and while the black
reins of your hair slip from my fingers, my demon heart pounds to a stop,
my blue eyes blush and the eiderdown's casual galaxy spirals around us.
John G.Hall©2007
