Pete Spence


Follows.

the weather seems
to follow me everywhere
a little like my shadow
though sometimes it
is slightly in front
back in Baku the weather
is following someone else
the way i figure! the way
the weather sees it
i follow no one 
it is my plot!



                        Sip.

           a modest delinquency
   
                 over breakfast

 thats hollering as i spoon it up

                    upwould

                                       then a sip                     

                                                         of badly designed

                                      Perrier

                                                       fizzing

      eroding my lips

                                                       the air
                                                          goes
                                                          limp

                                                                                     &
               
               as Kenneth says in MONDOHAMPERPLAGUE

                                  back
                                            to
                                                  the
                                                          meantime

                                                          aqua alights

                                                                  popular
                                                                           ivy
                                                                     tennis

                                                                      while
                                                                  reading

                                              MADRIGAUX
 
 
Quotes from MADRIGAUX by Tim Wright & Duncan Hose
& from Kenneth Koch's MONDO HAMPER



Walking Along Some Grass. 

stacked pavements birds sit at the top
no one walks there even with a parachute
that has holes in it to let clouds through
though they are lazy today sleeping against
the air and i am walking along some grass
am i going places? or is the grass going places!
no boundaries! the air follows like the smoke
of acute sound if we picked up a slight breeze
that was on its way somewhere the air
would ride it waking the clouds



Coils of Air.

quoit bunch minds the cracks into "time on"
like a few tenors on leave singing voids
that brittles clouds they dust the sunlight
a chorus on roller skates bundles past silent
as granite even in the shade that never
sings even under starlight! husks of tonal
dropouts like dried rosin sleeping in
the woods with the Woodwinds the
Xylophones shine bright in the sunshine
Ring dem chimes the Wagner Tubas
are nuzzling in the hay! has the Conductor
lost his hat again?  erratic piles of hats
everywhere but no Conductors hat! Sturm
und Drang! coils of air the haze takes fright

Pete Spence was born in 1946. He is a poet, visual poet, editor, and filmmaker, and has worked in various jobs to cover the ongoing deficit. A collection of his visual poetry, 5 X Y, was published by Red Fox Press as part of the C'est Mon Dada series.

 
 

previous page     contents     next page