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After
university Tony Lamb worked as a farm-labourer and a builder before
training to become a bronze-founder. He began to produce his own sculpture
in 1976, since when he has exhibited continuously all over England. Writes
as trancedly as possible, with practical help from oxygen, sugar,
nicotine, caffeine etc. His early experimental fiction was published by
John Calder. He is currently working on an interminable comic novel and a
collection of stories, besides a producing a stream of new bronzes.
the bogs
the bogs
the giant bogboats
the dumb men wrapped in
scarves and bandages
the mucous mist
the torn women with
their ladles and their groans
the shabby heron
the wormy children
dreaming of the sun
the featherless hens
shivering in the hold
all vanished
and all yet to come
to come
in
many ways frogs
in many ways frogs
resemble humans
more closely than do
monkeys
monkeys don’t swim
unless they have to
and they certainly
don’t dive
monkeys willingly go
into space
surrounded by hardware
commanded by software
their eyes bloodshot
and bulging
the static crackling
with their crummy jokes
their hearts
disintegrating
their bones melting
their eyes expanding
to fill the craters of
the moon
with fruitless dust
frogs on the other hand
can see the moon in the
pond
can hear the moon
bubbling
with the life of the
pond
can dive into the moon
any time they feel like
it
and with a single gulp
can devour
both earthly and
heavenly bread
it’s
just
it’s just a joke,
said Zeno
it’s just a justajoke
it’s just a
justajustajoke
and so on
and so on these rungs
he climbed
but no-one else
followed
everyone else thinking
them unsafe
and so he was alone in
space
which was funny enough
but a little too
peaceful for comfort -
he needed some friction
and so he rubbed his
backside against the atmosphere
producing a delightful
shower
of shooting stars
which everyone down
below
who happened to be
looking up
mistook for meteors
Vermeer
came to
Vermeer came to me in a
dream
he spoke through the
back of his head:
my brushes have gone
hard
my face has faded
so that I could be
anyone
don’t worry, I said
I found a solvent
and brought his brushes
back
to their primeval
condition
and restored the
features of his face
that’s better, he
said
when his tears had
dried
while we’re at it, he
said
taking off his clothes
to reveal a white
silhouette
you can do your stuff
on the rest of me
using all the tricks of
the illusionist’s trade
I reintroduced his body
to the third dimension
feels good, he said
then he saw his navel
o my God! he screamed
what’s this?
when
a meteorite lands
when a meteorite lands
in his soup
the chef is severely
scalded
he is also severely cut
by glass from the broken skylight
he is taken away from
his job and put into a hospital
he is presented with
the meteorite as compensation
he smashes the
meteorite against the head of his bed
twenty-four spacelings
fall to the floor and begin to squeak
they cure the chef of
his burns, his cuts and his anxieties
they charm the matron
into letting him go
they live in the
chef’s maisonette
they breed like flies
eventually there are so
many of them
the chef can no longer
breathe
he dies and they
overrun the world
the world dies
and they convert it
into a soup-kitchen
oh yes
the
steeples pierced
the steeples pierced
the membrane
that was their function
otherwise the fenmen
would be blind
as well as tiny
the clouds the sky the
stars the moon
and all that infinite
depth
were mere illusions
engraved upon the membrane
superstition was their
lifeblood
everything meant
something
they walked on
yesterday’s on tomorrow’s oysterbeds
what with the
inbreeding
a lot of hermaphrodites
were born
and instead of being
strangled or scorned were worshipped
their pockets filled
with lead
to prevent them from
ascending
wherever possible
they were secreted
beneath the altar
tablecloth before service began
the clergy were none
the wiser
the fenmen denied
nothing
after all
what is an
hermaphrodite
but a living cross?
a man was
creeping
a man was creeping
about in the garden
in the night
so she put on her
son’s bear mask
and went out
and silently confronted
him
this was perhaps the
most surprising experience
the prowler had ever
had
as soon as he’d
fainted
she went in and called
the police
then she came out and
put the mask on the man
two policemen arrived
and experienced
surprise
the prowler-bear sat up
and they experienced
fear
they moved round behind
her
what is it? asked one
I don’t know, she
shivered
she didn’t know
she could only think
as the entity got up
and lolloped away on
all fours
that the mask was
inflicting
its own punishment
upon the man
she was the
light
she was the light
the whole light
and nothing but the
light
whereas he
was a mere sparkleton
who’d happened to
stray into her path
her rhapsodies invented
themselves as they went along
one moment they might
be goldfinch trills
the next the moan of an
abysmal whale
he quivered accordingly
she
took me
she took me in her arms
as though I were a bag
of washing
laundered me
as though I were a
stolen banknote
dried me
as though I were a
testicle plum
pruned me
as though I were a tree
of knowledge
burned me
as though I were an
autumn sacrifice
I flew up yelling into
the air
I would return
passed on from wind to
wind
I would circumnavigate
the planet
solidify behind her
back
tap her on the shoulder
crave admission to her
righteousness
the speed of re-entry
is critical
likewise the angle
she lies
beneath
she lies beneath her
canopy
of green light
but who am I to stop
there?
yes, my tale runs on
into her mossy places
indeed, what am I
but a tributary of her
Amazon
and what are my
tributes
but shoals of
quicksilver?
she’s
recently doubled
she’s recently
doubled
the number of meals she
eats
which I find quite
touching
the easiest thing to
forget
is that you’re not
locked in
if she wishes to expand
then who am I
to do anything but
eulogise?
loose clothes stretchy
clothes
she grows triumphantly
beneath them
as a devout materialist
I am bound
to love her twice as
much
when she is sixteen
stone
as when she was eight
she
was a jungle
she was a jungle she
writhed
with the snake of it
dripped
with the leaf of it
gave birth
to the pigmy of it
I was callous to her
fervour blind
to her grace
I couldn’t see the
sun
shafting down through
her trees
or the glint of
diamonds
in her mossy places
I could only betray her
on misty
days
on misty days she
glistened
on sunny days she shone
her halo hovered like
mistletoe
above her head:
you had to kiss her
to make sure she was
true
and not too good to be
her
features
her features are like
birds
I see them everywhere
in black hair migrating
from head to head
in eyelashes feathered
with mascara
in the undergrowth
which hops
from
crotch to crotch
she
would wash
she would wash her face
with a lemon
she would put a pie to
bake in the fridge
she would confuse her
husband with her son
she would mistake the
pier for a bridge
she knew the sea well
but the sea didn’t
know her at all
and often tried to
drown her
her rescuers came in
droves
swimming all kinds of
exotic strokes
but the life they saved
was not a happy one
when they laid her on
the pebbles
and resuscitated her
she was grateful
not for what they’d
done
but for what they
thought they’d done
first she becomes
first she becomes
wretched
then she becomes
unconscious
then she becomes an
emergency
the stomach-pump saves
her every time
when she resurfaces
she pretends not to
enjoy
some warm milk
some undivided
attention
I know she’s adream
I know she’s adream
now
her feathery body falls
from my leaning tower
she lands in two moons
at the end
of my tubular eye
although we don’t
although we don’t
speak Siamese any more
although her spades
have buried my hearts
and her clubs have
bludgeoned my diamonds
she still provides for
me in her will:
I inherit the ship at
the end of her slipway
the desert on the other
side of her sea
her crusade across the
desert
her triumph over
Infidelity
her lips were
her lips were like lips
her eyes were like eyes
her hair was like hair
her heart was like a
metaphor
I was proud to be her
only drawback
without me she’d have
been perfect
if she’d been perfect
the world
would have collapsed
I was proud to be
guarding the world
from her perfection
a green tent
a green tent suddenly
pitched itself around her
‘now we’ll see what
you’re made of’
said the surgeon who
was wearing it
well
if his eyes were
anything to go by
she was made of moss
moss you could rub your
cheeks against
moss you could nestle
your hopes upon
she maintained this
moisture
until the tent
dismantled itself and fled
she’d never cared for
the piercing sensation
which accompanies a
surgeon’s right hand
nor had she cared for
the nomadic existence
the midwife fainted
the midwife fainted and
was carried from the ward
with an electrical
storm raging beneath her uniform
her landmarks were
illuminated in flashes
her pinnacles and her
steeples sharp
against her starched
sky
herself went into
highspeed labour
and gave birth to a
baby ball of lightning
neither male nor female
which floated through
the maternity wing
pursued by orderlies
with buckets of darkness
married to the moon
married to the moon
once
now divorced
no longer can I ski
softly down her slopes
no longer bounce slowly
among her shadows
no longer the high and
the ebb of it
no longer the crescent
and the sphere of it
married to the moon
once
now eclipsed
knitted a quilt
knitted a quilt for you
my dear
a quilt of water to
keep you warm in your stony bed
a quilt of flowing
water to wash the grit from your dreams
a quilt of heavy water
to help you feel secure
don’t wake up when I
speak to you
don’t hear what I’m
saying with anything
so corny as your ears
hear me with your herd
of tulips
hear me with your flock
of plums
don’t forget my
favourite drink is tulip milk
and my most cherished
garment a plumskin coat
I
realise
I realise that once I
was a miller
in probably Flanders
once I used whatever
blew my way
on calm days I trudged
through the mud
of my sleeping wife’s
dreams
with only the
occasional pigeon for company
and only the emptiness
in the pigeon’s stomach
to remind me of my
hunger
on windy days I became
the fulcrum
of the invisible world
beneath my very stone
birdfood was
transformed
into manfood
as the sea
as the sea came into
him
so the spirit went out
of him
the spirit received
mercy and function
the body received rigor
and drifted
in an easterly
direction
winding up several
weeks later at Brixham
to be identified by his
dentist and buried
it’s a queer tribe to
belong to
the tribe of dead
divers
doleful yet vaguely
important
things above
‘things above are
better than things below
but all creation is
better than things above’
Augustine’s aphorism
embodies
the Golden Ratio:
A is to
B
as A plus
B is to
A
so we are justified
geometrically as well
as historically
when we say:
‘the spiritual
Augustine is better
than the sensual
but the whole of
Augustine
is better than the
spiritual’
here they come
here he comes, like a
parrot on parole
here she comes, like an
off-duty haddock
he speaks all the words
he knows
while she sits there
gasping for something
he, not noticing that
she resembles a haddock,
thinks she is gasping
for air
she, not noticing that
he resembles a parrot,
thinks his words ought
to make more sense
because they have no
love for simile
they leave each other
stranded
there was a thrush
there was a thrush
whose attention
I wished to attract
so I pretended to be a
snail
but when she picked me
up
and started beating me
against a stone
I began to regret
not for the first time
my ridiculous talent
for mimicry
the trouble with
the trouble with being
a medium
is you don’t have any
choice
you don’t even have
the illusion of choice
which everyone else
enjoys
instead of a spine
you have a marimba
instead of a ribcage
you have a resonating
chamber
at one point Zeno
at one point Zeno
descends upon the world
and bites off an
infinitesimal lump
but even this is more
than he can chew
because his teeth
although not really
false
are also not particularly
true
they were working late
they were working late
at the ovary palace
the supervisor
screeched her orders to the children
who scuttled to and fro
across the slippery floor
up aloft
in a perspex cradle
suspended from the ceiling
lay an enormous baby
this was Dormund
sole survivor
of last year’s fire
scowling
scowling in Antwerp -
three vermilion
chalkmarks denote my presence
my wife and her sister
carefully fold their wings
they won’t need them
for another year
hear one whisper to the
other -
‘I got him some
tongue for his tea’
a blackbird hopped
a blackbird hopped
into my three o’clock
skull
the heart of the
blackbird
beat me back into shape
now I was no
fluctuation
in no vacuum
now I knew nothing
about no cosmic egg
the lucky monkey
the lucky monkey can
look out
through the mesh
of
its laboratory cage
and see Darwin’s
descendants
tossing coins
and unpacking packets
of scalpels
sometimes
sometimes the spirit
doubts the body
this is known as
idealism
sometimes the body
doubts the spirit
this is known as
scepticism
sometimes the spirit
denies the body
this is known as
asceticism
sometimes the body
denies the spirit
this is known as
materialism
sometimes the spirit
believes in the body
this is known as
athleticism
sometimes the body
believes in the spirit
this is known as
credulism
sometimes the spirit
knows the body
this is known as
gnosticism
sometimes the body
knows the spirit
this is known as
gnosticism
like a little
like a little fruit-pie
say blackberry and apple
which is designed and
made
and packaged and bought
and bitten into and
thrown away
and no-one ever even
bothers
to feel sorry for it
except perhaps the
occasional schizophrenic
when I saw a cow
when I saw a cow
drinking
from its own udder
all the previous sense
I’d made of life
evaporated
it looks as though
it looks as though
I’m ploughing
purely for the benefit
of the seagull
but I’m not
I’m also doing it for
my wife
who lies at home in a
Dutch cupboard
with more babies than
sense
and more sense than
money
I wasn’t enough of
I wasn’t enough of
a cormorant today
my wings were too wet
my neck was too short
my beak was too soft
my legs were too long
my trying was too hard
another day I might
rectify these faults
and find everything at
all
at any given moment
at any given moment the
story is complete
the elephant can look
down
and see the end of its
tusk
the mammoth can look
back
and see the end of its
line
the early cat
the early cat catches
the early bird
catching the worm
in other words
a stitch in time
saves nine in eternity
in order to be
in order to be a
psychologist
you must first become
alienated
then you sit around
gawping at rats
and playing with
top-heavy words
you even think you’re
saying something
about the rats
but all you’re really
saying is:
‘Mummy, Mummy, look
at me. I’m a psychologist.’
others
others say:
bring back the birch
bring back the gallows
bring back the rack
but we say:
bring back the
ornamental hermit
after all
after all the struggle
merely reaffirms itself
as the conflict between
surface and depth
where surface is the
fallen leaf
which looks like a frog
and depth the frog
which looks like a
fallen leaf
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