Negatives

Philip Terry
ISSUE 2007-1
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Negatives "Sometimes the antonym is right."                                    Anthony Barnett Be silent. As if I couldn't fail to Acknowledge Ignorance, Lunging backwards Across the field. From what now Don't I Dangerously steal On drug-fuelled nights? The black skies of mortality. Do you not hear Me unsay that Your intention To be serious Isn't generous? Moral: Unlike your nose. In the morning You stamp My visible Ear with A conventional and Polite Kiss. I never said A new chair Has no history. A grin from Ruth. Silenced tongues. Running on my own My trousers flap round my ankles. Unappetising keen odour Dissipates. You never see Me ease Myself Out of the limelight. Carefully dressed. My lips are Sealed. Different places Speak plainly. We die in our Impudence. You Judge me by the cover, Like a Cheap paperback. This doesn't explain why Your gesture Races through My non-existence. You are distant From yourself. Overexcited And unequivocal. Not there behind me Air of thoroughbred Rose and exterminate Bindweed. Not there I am not. Imploding. Thirst-quenching eau de vie. Modestly Your homeopathic cures For anorexia Come unstuck in the face Of your fridge. You can't picture Me behind A drumkit. You are well Out of it. Timeless Soloist. You are horrified by Serenity like a Landlocked firing Squad. Outsized Planets and clay Pigeons. Fading Sun. This is no Crop circle. Full orchestra At daybreak. Valley sanatorium. Myxomatosis. Are you not sun blind Sun spoke mouthing Misattributed success? Symphony For brass. In cluster bombs We play out our watery Affections. We meet On the cliff. Caught in possession. Blotted out in Dumbshow fountains Fact crumbles. Opaque Grey undercoat. Out of sync I remember or Make a claim. Hyperreality Stretches out the air-brushed Gravel. Only yes, no Water sculptures. This isn't a Non-event with Doves. Touch. Large new-found Island. You have Seen much. Below nothing Inoffensive racket. Realistic teeth. Or the patio Now a jungle. Untransfigured, Adult. Sleeping Dusk drops Ears on The pillow. Bats. I am Bad on the mobile. Black gums, age-reek. Dreadlocks, Red wine. Go straight For the flower. Neon reality of the night. Mists evaporate. You are all ears. Hear Watery earth populate The heavens. Then it all comes back. With silence You never fail to question Me about the happiness Of the prisoner. Why Shouldn't you release Me? Not Just deluge of sunshine, Tangible steps along the vale. And us, asleep, Photographed. See Unfamiliar sights. Cut felt On lard. Touch brightens. Bore-hole. Warm Omniscient Moon. Melting Wax Nose. Outside my ears Prose freezes All but the stiff. Wasps loiter Impertinently. Sweetness And cold putty Clog the brain. We deconstruct Pastiches of bark. Sub-atomic waves Unhinge. I'm so Big my frown Drops on the table. Does the difference Of two signifiers look (metonymically) like (metaphorically) the trajectory Of a falling tambourine? Then an echo-hoeing silence. Never see them undress. Impatient boys Outside bars and Parks, bodice Buttons done. Under the chair Trousers done-up, skirts Unzipped. Around a wall The hoover sucks Earth through crevice. Propeller Hovers over eye. My Diminutiveness Opens Out of the circle. A hole is formed. They find you Empty-handed. Distilling potheen. Curiously indifferent Unafraid of trespass. Speeding, inconspicuous Appropriate. Released Over piers, doors Remain closed, old breasts Slack. Separated by indifference. Tears Oblivion, you forget You hate me. Wholeheartedly I hand back the Chains of the folk song. Spun on a wheel. Unnatural Escapism, too little Hung on a cross. Genteel fad lost amidst Maybe and why not. What is that bush Like a blackout blind That robs our Flat of light? Sadly She dyes earth gold Standing under a tree For no reason. Lust for two of a kind Without talent or Energy. My unnumbered feet Pieced together from noisy Uniform aberrations Of modernity In virtual motion. "Negatives" explore the Oulipian method of antonymic translation, here applied to source texts taken from Anthony Barnett.