April First

Daffodils glared forth at me

Loud speakers’ mouths diffused at me

Gaping holes of yellow frusta

Screaming out phenomena

In one direction every angle

No breath of wind would make them tremble

On their green and sloping bank

Projecting their voices, all in rank

Six knives from them welcomed me

Yellow spikes symmetrically

Shape too simple colour bright

Folly is your heart’s delight

Loudspeakers’ mouths diffuse at me

Shining at me phenomenally

Narcissus pseudonarcissus

All planted

By the road

In a line

Vaudevue

Poem inspired by Stevie Smith's poem Come On, Come Back, in which the protagonist is a character called Vaudevue

So this is it.

Here is where it ends

The battle’s tide has swept me here

Nothing left over here, no, but fear

And deadly silence consuming my mind

The field of battle

Away I must get away

Ah me why am I here

Sitting alone on this round flat stone

Where deafening silence plagues the mind

The lake it

Pulls me forward, draws

My numb legs nearer, sagging, sailing to

The tide – the only thing that will ever hide

The spiralling, falling, white-noise mind

It takes me in, consumes me I fall

Into its arms, it hugs me in its arms no

Cold can rouse me now

My mind is too far

The theme still plays

The white-noise plague won’t go away

‘Come On, Come Back’

Vaudevue

In the swift and subtle current’s close embrace

Is just a name that’s served my place

A word it will remain, for here I am a-strain

Released now from my pain

‘Come On, Come Back’