Sez/Everything Speaks (An Excerpt) Poem by Marcus Smith Poetry

Connected

The buzz, the vibration -
Who? Now? Why? Must.
Now - in my pocket.

Reach for it -
Nothing on, not there.
Phantom ring.



Muse Shop

Two arms - plastic -
Tossed on a bed in the window -
The store dark and empty.

Looking back:
Manikin, no arms, staring at the bed.



Intimissme

You roll by - nice underwear.
The bus comes. There you are, rolling by,
Waiting for me. You don't blush.

I'm waiting for the next bus.
There you are on the bus, blushing.

My bus. There you are, rolling by
Between betting and beer.
I haven't changed. Have you?



No Longer

I stare, your young lover
Seeing you naked in the morning.

The brunette wears a dress.
The blonde imitation fur.

A shopgirl dresses you
In a style you'd never wear.

I don't remember your dress
On the night you always said yes.

On the streets you forget.



(Where are you and what are you doing?)




Eclipse Street Station

Line long - hurry.
Train late - when?
Don't know. Worry.
Clocking spinning
Backwards. Soon?

Line long. Stand. Sit.
Time. Home. Work. Sleep.
Love. Sex. Time. Gone.



Mystery in Me

Machine upset,
Magic wand confused.
Pat down - nothing,
Chemical test - nothing.
They let me go through
Like I am nothing.
What did they miss?



Terminal

Bent over devices -
Fingers tapping,
Fingers of ice
Gliding over ice.
Trashman sweeps
Between their legs.
Messages sent somewhere.
Waiting for yours.



(Don't call me. Text me.)



Skulls

Skulls in the windows,
Skulls on his arms.
Skulls on your pillows.
Skulls are your charms.

I say death-wish.
Oh, don't be serious.
I like your hair.
I can imagine your skull.



Looking In

There's the bench I never sat on
With my mother before she died in my arms.

There' s the picnic in the grass
I never had with you, whom I didn't know.
(And we tumbled through your sundress.)

There's the swing I never rode
Or pushed that laughing boy through
Golden-haired sky.

There's the studious old man I never was
Staring at the tree smaller than me then.

And there's the lock I never turned,
The gate I never opened,
The gardener I never spoke to,
The neighbor I never had,
The wife I never lost,
The friend I never betrayed,
The loneliness I wish I earned.



She's Taking A Picture

A teenage girl and the bars of an iron gate.
The long private lawn. The order of the path;
Freshly raked gravel and golden earth.
The placement of benches and flowerbeds.
The daffodils rising again, unfolding,
And the disheveled hearts of violets.
A place, though, you'd want to be less lonely.
No Adam and Eves of urbanity here
On the finest day ordered in the catalogue.
No children flying on red wooden swings
Or Gran tending the bees, couples picnicking.
Empty today, beautiful, and empty every day I pass.
As if no one dared approach a delicate ornament.
A fear even the most graceful ballerina will break
Everything into lost time and place.
But place you'd have as your soul's mate
If open to other dancers from the waiting list.



Mine

I took mine twenty years earlier.
The locked square in the fall of imagination.
Spring in November. Greening light
That said, 'Step inside. You'll never get old.
You'll have time for warmth, for sun.
Hope is always here. Joy never leaves.'
She always looking twenty in my picture.
I am a hundred and five lives away.
An old man with a ragged cough.



(Where are you?)



Between dark sky
And dark land
A streak of red light.
The skies in us still burning.

Watching A Helicopter



Sales

20 per cent off.
I'm full price -
50 per cent clearance.
I'm still here.
Total liquidation.
I walk faster.
Closed. For rent.
Where do I go?



Reduced

To the mountain of desire
Tumbling down into the sea.
The money flying to the stars
As the dresses drown.



Further Reductions

Like a march, a movement,
A protest for miles
Wide as a double pavement
And I'm marching too.
I am one feeling. it's small. A flea.



Last Chance Monday

Extra 30 per cent slashed.
I was too late.
Final clearance,
But I already have.
Everything must go except me.
We are moving.
I'm staying here.
Am left behind staying here.
Only the solvent.



A Frame

I got him a frame.
He ‘ll spent hours searching
For the right one.



The Directions

In the mist we couldn't read the numbers
Or the bold names of the shops.
We couldn't see the displays or signs.
We were walking towards our footsteps
And they said, 'Follow.'



Shoes

One shoe lying in the street.
Two tossed on the crosswalk.
Shoes leading to the bridge.
A path, a pattern, a confetti
Of lost, removed, discarded shoes -
Old pumps, new flats, heels, trainers,
Shoes without names, shoes I can't name,
Shoes made for the future, shoes soon
From the past, shoes like spring petals,
Broken canes, cracked bones, shoes
Wrinkled as skin, buckles twisted, straps
Torn and snapped, tongues dried up,
Shoes heading to the tunnel, marching
Across the square, strolling around
The arcades, pausing along the esplanades,
Running and darting and scuffling
Through an alley to a dead-end pile
Of shoes. Someone there, in shoes,
Looks back as if to find where are they -
The barefoot people - and follows
A fading footfall down the ramp
To a river of shoes carried away.



Suddenly

The ad, sign, shoes, next street,
Your lobster walking the leash.
They say don' be ridiculous -
We're not ridiculous. They say -
Suddenly everything speaks.



Theatre Staff Only

The costumes done for the day.
The props resting quietly.
The stage black -
An understudy rehearses the dark.

'Whether It is nobler...'

The high age of eloquence
Dressed in horse hair,
Eating from a trencher,
Sleeping on a straw mat,
Waking to the wolves,
Smelling of chamber pot,
Dirty as a tramp,
Heaving on the chainmail,
Riding to Bloodingate,
Slashing off an arm,
Disemboweling a brother,
Draw-and-quartering prisoners,
Praying to God for the victory.

In our warm wired room,
Turning on the comfort,
Taking a bath in the jetstream,
A man and women speak
A few thudding grunts.
Hamlet aging. The skull.
Ophelia drowning in the tub.
Channel 5. Check messages:

'…hope in a great man's memory…'

Stagelights switched on.
Actor wobbles away.
Ice cream stains on the seats.
Maybe in the morning.



Back to Myth

When you dared not look back
It was me following you into spring.
The people were blooming.
We were still winter. Persephone.



(...sopped by roadworks. Staring at Wellington…)



Arch of Defeat

We are building every day.
For centuries we never stop.
We build tall, we build wide
In the boardrooms of our city,
In the bedrooms of our fears,
Where love wants softer pillows.
We build in halls of our universities,
Where young people always ask.
In the wards of our hospitals,
Where our doctors ask death.

Visitors say why are you?
It's big enough? When will you stop?
No. Never. We are going to failure.
Otherwise we will stop.
How will you know when?
We will never stop.

Conquerors demand legal reasons
Carved precisely as our stone.
They shake swords and axes.
They roar and throw our holy ones
Into a bear pit to torture an answer
For a question they never accept.
They tear down our Arch of Defeat.
They want an Arch of Triumph.
Their slaves work and afterwards
Burn with the plans and architects.




I Came To A Book

I came to a book lying on the sidewalk,
A dead fish splayed open
In a last sculpted agony of rigor mortis
And somehow balanced upright,
An accordion stretched for a mournful tune.

It was big, the book, as big as a bench,
Hard as a bench, and my legs were tired
From gong back before getting there.

I sat down gently, at first not sure
If the book like a bench would hold me.
It was a petrified jewel I found in the desert.

I tried to read the pages underneath -
Blank or faded pages that wouldn't turn.
I thought of inscribing the Desiderata,
But I needed a resolved chisel
And I had no training in masterwork,
Only a feeling I couldn't quite name
Of sitting on a hard blank book
With pages that wouldn't turn,
While in a crowded room I'm not talking
Except to a girl who had read the book.



(I'm feeling lonely today. Are you?)



Lonely. I can tell you.
She talks. I'm anyone.

He screams at the driver.
'Why won't you listen to me? '

They don't know where they're going.
You tell the best way you know.


We want the bus to go faster.
I try to read the words.

We have much to do.



(It's 5,30)



Please Do Not Reply

I'm out of range.
We have a bad connection.
I'm in a meeting of cattlemen,
I mean gentlemen.
My battery's low.
My machine's really slow
People would be listening.
I have to talk to them,
And I'm lying now -
Lying in the bluegrass
Outside the time of day.
I'm looking at mountains.
The snow that's left
And the sun which melts.
Dissolve, dissolve.



(5,30)



5,30,6,30

There was a long line.
(For a peek at the artist
Mounted under glass.)

They didn't have it so I
Went to And And And & And
(On my way to sunshine)

Rain. It was raining
And taxis were fleeing my shadow
(To the first page of twilight)

I took the bus into darkness
(En route to the streetlamps)
The bus cracked like a toy bus.

Well, I'm walking (the long way)
Past the gabled houses
On the quiet street we like.


Because when I'm with you
I'll tell you (if you want to listen) .



6,45)



The Signal Is Weak

I'm there. Come here.
CCTV Cameras in Operation.
Are you watching me?
Please don't reply.
The sign says Refusal Often Offends.
Congestion Stay in Lane.
Diversion. Leave me alone.
Priorities Change Ahead.
Leave me alone.
Did you get my last message?
The signal is weak.
Await Help.
The signal is weak.



(I'm losing you. Meet me where?)



Update

Why? I'm going here.
When? The signal is weak.
At an entrance. Where are you?
An exit. With a statue.
Of whom?
It's not a person.
Did you pay for the time yet?
My card was declined.
What happens next?
Visa. Where are you?
At an exit with a statue.
Of a person?



(I'm going home.)



We are now ready,
Waiting for the journey.
When will it start?
When will it go?
Oh, we're already here.
In a room of folding chairs
There are the windows.

Arrival


The Text