Christopher Barnes [England]
Dream House
Dream Boat
"Drowsed With the Fume Of Poppies"
Dream House
Up Longbenton stairs I paddle. Hooker’s green,
complexion of sea, sheen of bottles, chroma under leaves shaking at the
skylight, slick paintwork. Number 27, letterbox midriff, dull would-be
silver, two twists to admittance.
Joel said he had been seized by devils. Sage and
mushroom horror-heads fell pell-mell clamouring about his ears. Paper
irk-notes, ten thousand dollars, run off in taunts, a blast, hell’s discharge,
each smeared furrow burning on his throbbing brow.
Mercury, 36 million miles from sun-disc. Jesmond,
walking range, sloped, a constellation, warm comfort, books, posh capsized
cadences alien to the slush of Tyne. Just a visitor, unaccustomed to
forenoons, nebulous calm, cats parading Egyptian poses, hypnotic trickle,
flower-bed tropical fish tank, globular movements slowed.
At 4 am it stood grandly, 2 acres. Skillfully hired
help took it all in hand, gliding a massive banister, an alchemy of patience,
laying fully-fitted kali like experienced choux chefs, juggling superbly bits,
bobs. Radiant sunlight filtered through milk-spun curtains; I woke to a
rattle, the cheap alarm, grabbed a quick coffee, went to sign on.
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Dreamboat
(after Alan Ross’ Messdeck)
A bulb flies off
Smashing a paddy-whack at rivet-frame rims
And the crowned propeller shaft sweats
-
a tattoo on the vessel’s belly.
It’s dichotomized as boiler room and clam.
We’re shifting sands
In hosing light of its girders.
Ghost-ship delirium.
We’ve been swigged in all likelihood
Through salty jaws of gas-white sea.
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"Drowsed With
The Fume Of Poppies"
(after John Keats' Ode To Autumn)
Papaver poppies, yes, the corkwood’s
Scrumpy-veined.
Honey fungus, malodorous
In soft-dying glisters
At her fog-dripped toes.
She thickens moss,
Cools-off on a bank.
The dust-of-ages mausoleum is flesh,
A blister beetle tickles up the column.
Frittered feathers,
Only choughs seem residual.
October, an amber headlamp
Splitting tinges on Fair Isle.
When she lurches off
I’ve a sense of inhaling
A spore go-smoothly breeze.
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Copyright ©2007 by Christopher Barnes
British poet Christopher Barnes lives in Newcastle, United Kingdom. In 1998 Barnes won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 2000 he read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology Titles Are Bitches. Christmas 2001 he debuted at Newcastle's famous Morden Tower doing a reading of his poems. Each year he reads for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and partakes in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of his collection Lovebites published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
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