Robert Stanton

Snug


(for David Stirrup   at home)


'A mole is a spy who spies on spies.'
                                                   SUSAN HOWE, The Birth-mark

'He that hath wife and children, hath given hostages to fortune.'
                                                   FRANCIS BACON, 'Of Marriage and Single Life'


For the longest time possible you did not even go to bed, which caused problems (sleep-
   deprivation only the most obvious). Intractable. 'It is far easier to be eclectic, to follow
the routine patterns which abound in our professional arsenal: less trouble for the director
   and simpler for the audience.' Overt and cynical. Amoral code. An aphorism gives us space
to breathe. Near-sight makes benefit of lengthy views. Predict the future curve: spun, come
   what may. A bit part. Salient. Good smile (or simile) unblocks the drain. A photograph intriguing
to itself. Seduction of a house: an architect is one who hides in caves (a mantle, roof, a porch,
   sarcophagus). Cloud-arrangements: some cirrus, mostly cirrocumulus, some lit up pink (red sky
at night?
), and others golden, blazed on by the last of light (the coming age?). So beautiful as to be
   laughable. Starling-flocks. As punctuation/contrast (utter). "How can I believe in that? Surely

it cannot be?" New words! Fresh seeds! Triangulation! Force! Don't ask a metaphor for bearings
   though. An info-flux. A tempt. A firm directives season: fight fire; paint good; try; counter
intelligence. As children are a wilderness of pain, it suits the moment to adopt a lilt. You listen
   to a daughter's cries and know the world is not repairable. It's rubble. Ashes. Atoms. Loans
accrue. A ghost inhabits each (and every) tree. You'd like to venture on, if that agrees. Breath
   shivers dust. Words echo 'thus'. Are you allowed to swallow words? Repeating yourself
is the way to go. That certain tact. Cheerful, when cheerful; good, when good: a pendulum sufficient
   to an aide. The boundaries of a moral sense. A lock presents a room. Kissing is ritual, and isn't
too. Yeah, OK: a higher being. So? Dead Nature blessed unto her hindmost parts. Just don't expect
   a vista, at the end. (Plateau is enough. An Englishness to claim no victory?) Each morning, the

eviction; each, the stand. A certain coolness. Temple. Curtain. Throbbing in deep freeze. A certain
   blow. Broken statues. Statures. Statutes. Fixed idea! Reference points appear (or should) 'out-
side' punctuation. Living in your clothes, your thought, your hat. God's work of art, as 'one'
   might say. One 'may' exult. So pampered and unhappy. Besides the work, the thought that flies
the world. A prop (made out of gold) supports the mine-shaft down. Peristalsis 'at core'. Limb
   of government. Head for concrete. A typical Western scientist, is she? No? Not, in any case, all
one to me. Preserve that tongue. The decent thing to do. Call and response. Saying gets you no-
   where anyhow. A seemlier advance. But you (I do mean 'you' here, David, real you, yes) have
licensed hostages. Already talked of cabbages and kings. Beaten off unliving with a joke. Cut
   'cut'. Did he repeat himself? The script? Writes on back of hands. Mime 'artist'. Point/Don't

point. Thief-taker: double theft. A mole: a mole (the molehills opposite define the field, triangulation
   of an underworld, tunnels forcing tunnels, routes to routes.) Getting there. From here. (The only
way.) A world should include someone whistling somewhere. The master and the mistress cheat
   at cards. I would fain a little honesty. Assent is for the mindless. "Yeah, yeah, right." They are 'as
it were'. Unreasonable is political. Boys with toys. Fascinate 'in' rhythm. Music argues with you (slow-
   moving MCs is waiting for the editing
). Headache manifests as a hot animal (to your half-
consciousness). Lego piece swallowed. A swirling nebula of toothpaste, going down the universal
   plughole. "No, I'm good." Two types of matter, one substantial (sand), one insubstantial (wrath).
Re-re-record. Re-phrase. Re-spond. (Close to smug, but far too close to sung.) Acknowledges its own
   wordiness, its huge material potential. 'Their' cannot have one referent. Also a word that points

beyond itself, beyond the only word. Quite quiet, then urgent (not yet frantic, not demanding, no). Cop
   of the world. Polis/Police. Assuming 'I' was in the wrong place first. Assuming 'I' was wrong in
the first place. An invite to name names. Sound management. A human interval. More danger. Pro-
   verbially. Skim/skin the child. The father of humanism. Humans. Hostages. You mean skip. Skip
the child. Anima. Animal. Animus. I seem to read through an ever-present Renaissance-mesh. Syntax.
   (As god.) Inarticulate. (As verb.) Slick and unbecoming. Manyfists (i.e. 'the headache manyfists'). It
smarts. It disappeared. (It diss/ape/peered.) Triumphant ring-side entrance. Centre, of an object, or
   'the matter.' Triumphant ring-side exit. Been long, too long. Continual experiment: the two thieves
as control. Nerve centre; light source. The House of the Lifting of the Head. Re-enact rehearsals: move
   the audience. Home-boy, home-body; home-work, home-wreck. Some chivalric values. Words

gather in the lambent dark. Lovingly, you pick them out. Lovingly, they cut their teeth on you. Hip
   hop, caffeine: a telling combination. A very palpable hit. 'So, there, perhaps, is a simultaneous co-
existence of the natural and spiritual just as we should have learnt from the epigraph.' The facts are
   big enough. Don't turn a thought, idea, into a drama. Not like that. Like this. You do. A party on
the beach; shed-loads of time. So much depends upon 'so much depends'. Rapid-eye-movement. Snug
   folder. Griefwork. Coupling. A static burn. O pun, sez me! My posse go quick because my posse
got velocity
. 'Something evermore about to be.' The Threes Tuns. The Four Alls. (Ells?) Cowards
   Printers. Frame Structures. (Is that an order?) Take care, thinking. Difference between a rocket and
a jet. Americans discussing bluish snow. There's nowt like boring facts, pedantic facts. A neat
   circle: sexual, bestial. Strummin' yer Abso-lute and gettin' silly. Humour as defence. Attack. As

status quo. Bound up, bound down. To hostages of fortune. You good man. And I shall be the one
   to knock it down
. Blot out the record. Now. (Blowing a dandelion was 'sending a letter to Nanny', not
because she was dead, in another world, but because she was in Australia, and the seeds would get
   there.) (Hay fever: seeds get their revenge?) The delicate art of making sense (doesn't that just spill
you, though?) Go, let the culprit through. To universal heat-death. Innocently thought-of, long thought-
   over lie. You tempest up, you storm-cloud, shake. You snub. Put burden off, O trireme-eye. De-/dif-
fused. Morpheme? Morphine? More theme? That dreaded dread. The self as comforter: come sleep,
   come sleep. Ascent is for the mindless, as you know. The rainy day is here: the abstract blooms (in
spring) into a town: these squares of light-ish green and brown (on yellow) turn to houses and
   to squares. Distance ascends (no clear divide for sky). You're better, yes. A present, yes. Are geese

evil? Sediment of sentiment. A feedback loop. A feedback loop. A fedback lop. (Work ethic. Work
   that body.) Side with light (wracked with insight). Sentience of sentences. Oblique. (That nude
sentience.) Perform 'model'. Model 'perform'. Dear boy, act. Dream (then act)/Depart (then act). Just
   act ('there, there'). The happy farm their worry out. How much of the average life is occupied in
pointless waiting? Who is interested, then, in the average life? And who is not? (We 'fascinate' each
   other/one another. You sample-world the frame, bring paint to bear.) Your patience is Job-like; your
panting is minimal. Anthropology researches itself. Beats our ploughshares into ploughshares. Cats
   eat mice, dogs eat cats, lions eat dogs, men eat lions. Cause and effect. Effort and curse. Reason and
spur. Flash and click and suddenness. How to spell 'whir'? 'Whirr'? Time to throw the paper copies
   out. (Spirit/Dust.) If you don't hear movement, wake up. Barefoot in grass. This time we are

both. "OK, Angel." Raw to war. Wall to wall. Ringing ears result of jazz transcendence. ('Ascent is
   for the mindful', and so on.) Simple sodium light in midst of ink. Knowledge is powder. Everything
is wrong (or nothing is). Face worse than debt. Catchall-catcall. Schlemiel-orgy. Exhausting the supply
   again. A-weary I. Another wasteful day, sitting on hands. 'I am perfectly fine and as I should
be.' (Spirit/Dust.) Very unique. 'Even if he is a weed, and not the seed he thought he was (a Johnny
   Appleseed!).' Trying not to see the lop-sided plant as symbolic: half dead, part-withered leaves, half
live branches, seeking light. Ficus, as you're asking. The TV programme so capped the day as to make
   your day-long mood proleptic. 'The study of men in crisis by men in crisis.' Crisp and bright: an ideal
home. Sitting here at your keyboard, reproduction of the charred corpse in front of you: here we go
   again. 'You can access your individual financial well-being by viewing.' Are you a man in crisis?

Ad-speak blurts. 'Corporate support for one's own salvation.' God-blush (that natty spark) can
   fit, can fit. 'I was an M-U-G.' (Spirit/Dust.) 'Fluctuant' is a word, though 'fluctuating' fits: index to
motion and change. Community as identity vs. self as sanctity. Silvine pad (plus biro) vs. Hemingway-
   style note-book. Ritual (as bunk). Two atoms of hydrogen, one of oxygen. Responds to books. Deep
in sleep, in thought. The printer blinks: come save me! save me! (Ouch. Quit it. Whinging. War. Just
   war.) 'The early universe captured in the image consisted only of a vast void containing minute
differences in temperature.' Antimuseum. 'There is not the slightest ground in the moral law for
   a necessary connection between the morality and proportionate happiness of a being who belongs
to the world.' And that's all, folks. An incunabula. A congruence. You lost an hour, or two, this
   evening, sleeping. Woke to find it cold. And dark. The streetlights on. A gap highlights between.