David Berridge: Polyphony of Warning
If not certainty then courage
to step back, dissolving panic. Where
am I thinking towards? hurl newspapers, clothes
into the bedroom, pour a glass of wine.
The planet or a dinner party either way
instinctive sense for colour and pattern
not reading sacred texts on tigers bodies
lack of tigers is not the problem
I have yet to unfreeze into history
become the last centurion, mock
Tudor aspirations, black timbers hammered
over my face. Out at sea
far from its natural habitat an
apocalyptic pudding. Yes. Ten pence
in the pier telescope write its web site
on the back of my hand.
Be careful what you wish for, you
are quite right there. Sky
is buckling. I'll get the job, unless they know
a song I can't resist
swerved on compliments
To have relief if only the thickness of paper
stepping on a log unintentionally lifted
a weight far greater than his own another
log. Your new career, said hesitantly
Gather at dusk to replace with natural objects
built in obsolescence, abstractions
trapped in a language that could always trace itself
back to the growth of plants, source
of all the world I saw opening a fraction to see
if there is or is not a sun
identifying, arranging what we found
dead ideas stroked by grass blades
laughed as if for the first time, mostly
everyone spoke enthusiastically
of something else, dug
into the man made hill
no treasure, unless a comparison
of leaves at different stages of development
arranged in a circle, an absurdity
of fighter jets low enough to see into cockpits
there I was! Flying brilliantly, no prior training
stroking the furry underside of
a leaf, a sensation
the things of home back in as if
what would welcome a house back
welcome a cloud for mark beginnings of
applause no marked ground or
grooved sky risk running to
intend intake of breath brought
if he cared was not unobservant
the window with it sharp
clouds who wants to
go keep head up where cloves
corner themselves
check where the windows were
What does your bag say about you it opens
up the debate to something other than consumerism
suddenly everyone in the cafe is designers we've
all found flaws in our cups the way handles
fit hands or rims of cups touch lips the temperature
or the grip the texture we all have models in our bags
of improvements models made spontaneously of
newspaper and shopping bags and some
have lost a sense of what is model and what is
coffee the lattes are poured into hypothetical
containers the coffee spills the attempt to drink
all over the floor we are designers we say
the cafe staff not improvising
a few of the designers are quiet their hands
claw restlessly at their necks for they too dissatisfied
locate the flaw not in the cup but in the human
body in the neck as the coffee slides down in the feeling
of the coffee in the stomach in the effect
of caffeine as it works into the blood stream
without assumptions the re-designs too private
to take place here we suggest a special promotion
the genetically enabled ghosts
The spaces I make are space for debate
even perhaps especially so the plastic windmills
on the soles of his feet tickled by grass stems
Abstractions a quick way to light a fire
in a storm when flames taller than all of us
stood on each others shoulders, corolla
had no idea it was on fire, relinquished
flames wore out again and again
ferocity of view. Vulnerable to directions
burned we began to sense
dynamic relationship to flames the hill
cold in moments when wind direction
cold of us the cold of what we're doing a
necessity fires like this on each hill
is possible to cross a whole country
from abstraction to abstraction until thought
burns away a sea for swimming in
laughing, this impulse kept us all awake
on the hill, flame
us all in a giant television, enthralled
to the many variety acts of appearances
A plant grew in the cracks
a bird flew into the house
a child flies out on the back
of the bird where a house
lies cracked open to a sky
houses are not liveable I
carry law down the stairs
