Pete Spence


Antacid Plea.

                                  1.
women sit knitting leather torsos in peach light
                                  2.
an apricot thinks of the sea
                                  3.          
green burps from the flytrap
                                  4.
you were wearing your erased tunic
                                  5.
an aspirin shudders
                                  6.
a small seed parachutes in to be with us
                                  7.
the adequate response again
                                  8.
decisive sideglance into haste


(written late 1970s)



China Aerodrome.


1.
     a pool of dualism drowns the salve
 
2.
    he's gathering rocks for the soup

3.
   its decor is alive!

4.
  something rash about the harsh evening
  heaving against the horizon
  harming the brevity substance
  alone in its branchy vase

5.
 all the nerves on earth stood on end


(1980s: revised 2023)



Conversing with an Apron.

i discovered i was conversing with the apron of my shirt
my conversation apparently had gone on for some time
for my voice was hoarse 
my tense chatter performed an animated asphyxiation
of words i could only go on though my throat ached
like a watch on the wrist of a dead clerk
although it was the midthrows of winter the air was heated
by the deathspasms of the words i uttered i went on
unheeding exhuming words from the belly of my head
i grew thinner as absence darkens the surrounding
accomplishment until i am the belch of a serpent
ruthlessly speaking the death of my words
 that are a subtle breathing overwhelming
the shell of my body toward a precipice arriving nearby 
my speech by now is dust and has blinded me 
now each fragment uttered is worth the fil(i)ament of a shout


(1988: revised 2023)



Assailant.

assailant asafoetidactic olibanum
rhinal sheer rhumb of stomach torso teeth
checkout serpula as cartilage 
leaping pretermit annulated
lingulate funambulist triviumated
savanna caesum triquetrous copiers
as zymotic homelitic shard of seers
whips shade on orectically
greywacke shicks and the daubing lozenges
complete inerrably
an ambulatory fabulist's bust
slave teething ligature
distrait shiver in an arbitrary chalk
singular of grammarian responses
carboniferous dimension tension
zygal of tegular aspirants
albuminoid pericranially leaks wind
over the gazogenic incision 
of a bessermered boulder-shaped 
harbinger exuviate fabliaux 
thaumatropic in dioeciously simulacra


(late 1980s or early 1990s)



Winterisse.

winter! the still ground still covered
with still leaves in the stillness 
outside a fog displaces scenery
i flaunt the measure of the great indoors
the solstice a few days into history
i'm listening to the energetic frictions
or is that fructions of Prokofiev as i stroll
the seismic shifts from room to room
in the rooms i roam in accustomed
to the light and stray inflections the sense
of corners doors and walls inhabiting
the present     outside the cold strides 
around the house the wind at its back 
as the fog lifts and moves away


(2014)



A Bit of Sol. 
     for Tim Wright.

the sun on my shoulder
avoiding any cloud
of thought i thought i had!
it has no shadow! nothing
gets in on the act today
or probably tomorrow
as it comes around
the shadow of the first
drop of sunlight invading
a pebbly horizon pearly
white under the clotted air


(2023)

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.

 
 

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