Robert Stanton

Thru


(for Jayne Wood   and a one   and a two   and a)



More adventurous thought (umpteen unfinished relics). Induce residue: slag. Product: gone. Year: basic
   division. Year: bigger, brighter bargains (yeah). Discussing 'necessary' and 'unnecessary' drones &
Lou Reed's singing style with John Cale at the reception before getting lost 'on the wrong side of the
   river' on that ridiculously long walk home — the city architecture and the bridge more pompous, the
city itself (Leeds?) more destitute than the last time you dreamt this. Why? James Nelson (again) as
   Virgil. Year: brought down by clowns. Deft collapse of cliché. At this distance man with loudspeaker
resembles bee. A bug to fit. Infinitely more impatient. Gesture it on. You'll not see nothing like the
   Mighty Quinn
. Agreed/indeedy. What next? Refusal to give assertion up; in the sphere of a certain
hour of one's life. Hurt art. 'Although she revelled in the genres she choose to explore — biography,
   autobiography, novel, essay, libretto, poem, play — Stein cannot really be designated a biographer,

novelist, essayist, playwright or poet. Primarily she is a writer, and writing is — as it were — always her
   main topic. Perhaps her only rival as a creator of writerly edifices in the twentieth century is James
Joyce.' An infinite and resonant concision. Akka. Suppose it was oxymoronic. Demons despise sound
   of shaking paper — guess what I found: you do too
. Suppose it was oxymoronic — then? Him and his
life. 'Man, I was using that word in the least pejorative sense you can imagine.' Photographs make lite
   work of it. Red admiral. In search of orange. You maybe owe it all to them: moonlight being sunlight
in the end. Syllabi. Trip B's voyage up. Wish to gain. 'I distrust it to give me what I want, but what I
   want is illegal anyhow.' Blood makes noise. Year: some better arch. Accountable. Moves beneath
the stage and harrows art. Circulation system alerts passers-by to flaw. ('I'll be damned. Am. A happy
   thought.') 'I have been known.' Force concentration. That can be rehearsed. 'Go ahead: do some

real damage.' Slappin' dead the moth. Soul in the blood, said Swedenborg. A prosaic mosaic. Off-
   beat conceit. Beside the question (there, sitting, polite, permanent). Nothing is as impressive (watch
that space). German for 'moon'. Words associating. At this point, sleep is the obvious future. Heart
   throbs in finger. Horticultural bent. Lenin/McCarthy. Are but us, our business. Artifice-led, marrying
product to consumer. Cold sufferers needed for driving experiment. All over. Egg-yolk sun, dancing in
   reflection, staining red. The centre open, as normal (during alterations). 'About to open to a burning
river.' Lyrical press-ups. Acclimatised to violent sounds. 'We enjoy working your music.' Crippled in
   yr own mind. (Eye hurts mind. Mind hurts world.) Harusipcate, terminal (eat the all — cut it up — sink
or sup). Fear heart attack at 26. Meanwood Ridge. Take off and landing gear down. 'Will the weevil
   delay?' Stuff — bright copper kettles — is enough? Hamlet's mirror (not S's). Leaving it in (or leaving

it out, wilfully). Ars. Year: of living dangerously. In your head. Godless. Third sentence and the three
   bullet holes. Led out to difficult choices. Let out. To decide. London never happened. The nether
regions. Compression of time (adrenalin kicks in). Patchy. Good-ish remedy. Insupportable (dumb
   as grass). Silenus. Year: of making baby soup. Year: neo gorge. You needed that sleep. Miniature
explosions, going off right now. Johnny B. Goode goes on, and on, and on. You needed sleep. Racing
   round the veins, lickety-spilt. Predetermination: direct link from loving Avocado Baby as a kid to
loving Rembrandt now. His conception of himself as port. Do you know 'what's going on'? Us spoke:
   he as himself, defined god as defined, will own your . . .of plunge, the into air, off step, you angel,
emasculate
. The poetry inself. Lost their chunk of the future. Circulation. You'd like cheesecake (for
   the best). Year: beating down the enemy. Sister, do you know my name? I've heard it before, but I

wanna know. Silenus (Benjamin: 'what is true has no windows; nowhere does the true look out into
   the universe'). In up to. Calamity builds up/breaks down. Display wounded. O will you work the time
to mend that load, / Or dally at the edges of the sea? / O will you pay the driver what is owed, / Or
   curse his suppleness and dignity?
Inept too. Talking pompously about the moon. Find yourself
kicking paper. Deserve your limits. Deceive. Walrus-shaped cloud. Sunbathing butterflies. Year: be-
   calmed. In the eye. Pool. Loop. 'Just where are your built-in batteries?' Nature comes irst, addresses
second; then come lectures, followed by essays. Leading out. Anti-American conduct/traits. Edges
   hedge bets. Wow wow wow wow. Money or postage? Watch words. Fastnet. 'Imagine the white stripes
between the lines of text acquiring depth.' The fulcrum history, teeming on its knees; people named
   for their job; the sorrows of the Piltdown Man. Made. Mock-scholarly, mock-expository, mock-

ing bird. Resistance makes life. Friction. In a dream, 'Bateau' (Baton?) was a German word meaning
   'Map'. The Japanese girl (German?) pointed to her wrist. Took a stance. Irresistible object. (Just be-
cause you're paranoid doesn't make you innocent.) Put flags down. Johnson in Scotland. 'Down from
   whatever-it-is they call a house to whatever-it-is they call a road.' What? Dream-factory (at an
angle). Serenity overdose. What? Year: OD'd, ate ammo. 'Look into your own heads, boys!' Old age
   as luxury. Year: logoless. A less successful attempt at counter-analysis you've never seen. Organic
metaphor. A story told you. (Everything falls together.) Drive-by/thru. Useful advice: know who you
   owe. Most useless of useless days. Garden of Trees. Tresses. Success! for plucky side. Year: counter
intelligence. Light as an affront. 'An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a
   rock, a learned man is a torch.' Othersuch 'professional' stuff. 'We might meet.' Parts of light: pastel

blue to hellish, fiery orange. She has an eye and a brain: an artist. Everybody's having kids. Year: soda
   pop. A thousand steps. Synthesised screaming, etc. Dating the evidence/innocent. Long haul. Long
gone. Ringing the changes on some dumb idea. Exclamation! 'I love dashes.' You did ask! Feeling as
   weird as you ever have. Just noticed today. Front to back to. Ditch the blonde. The other side. 'I will
fear.' Fall asleep through Tadcaster. Try not to see. (Bloody obvious.) Weapon as engine that pro-
   motes motion (run! ). Contrary soul holds the leg. Nothing comes. Everything is antonym. Contagious
spirit wallows in Mahler. Coaxed to limits; owls. Year: blood-shake. (That terrible info. We can attend
   to it. Cautious porpoise. Black sun. Say, abandoned epic: say, song: say, poisonous. Nothing makes
a difference.) Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C. Year: grasping, clashing, clout. (This will look so
   good in the biopic!) Raspberries. 'That's just the way it sold itself!' To help the reader, the first word

of each text becomes the title. Light and full of dreams. (There's something disrespectful in seeing
   a ghost.) (In love with a nothing baby. Nothing baby grows from the moon. ) Blink in yr ears. Always
leaving things behind in urgency. 'So, basically, no.' It's a fine line. Bomb as pillow. Which came first,
   colour or flower? Infestigation. Storm cloud; horse. Expecting/Accepting. Sound as king. Pillow
as bomb. From doubt to doubting. Pencilled in by Paul Celan. (Forty three/Ninety three.) Has this
   model high blood pressure? Just by looking. Useful to carry that Dorn about. At the very point that
history broke. Best thought in the bath. Divided line. Period of middling indifference — melody threads
   through words — (heart, er, dies) — carries you, gently, into his personal concerns. Poetic to see
rain as tears. Also evil. Abstract slashes. Dualistic knot. Panic not: system proof-fooled. Year: a sort of
   potato victory. (Total sound. Baffling.) So much more pointed! In/valid. Fitter . . .happier . . .more

productive. Joy of sex and commerce! Think-tankers. Tank-thinkers. A little too in love with its own
   silly noisiness. (Trapped in world, yourself and a mirror. Horror. Heart can't hurt. Colossal search-
light moon. Had to be risked.) Honey, I swallowed hype! The fish will burst from his head. O well, did
   you evah? what a swell party this is!
Just water crystals. Be clear (it isn't coherent). Hilarious, in a
bleak way. Man in a glass box. Box says 'Open'. Unanimous. Optical illusions never fail to delight. 'I
   would like to apologise: due to a technical error, there are no.' Compendium of good jokes. 'No, she
said. Yes, she said.' Year: whole handfuls of stuff. Proportion, measure, weight. Year: provocative, e-
   vocative, quite. Never seemed very. Do something clever. 'Just did.' 'Yeah? Well, apply it to the
whole world then.' A pile of used notebooks. Careering. Idol-shine. First one in the dumps; the second
   writhes; / the third one up for option; fourth one skives; / the fifth will eat your luncheon; last one

thrives. Bloody triangle resembles volcano. On top on tack on task. Ripples, interference. Everything
   next: the spurn, the loss, the first things last (and in). A permanent derailment. People don't know
what to think. And then they do. Year: to end press hash. Noisy words. Ominous and strange. Forms of
   retribution. 'Good use will be made of thee yet.' Memento mori, watching. Sputnik backrub. Formed
of renunciation. Following memento insomnia. Overhearing former pupils (dream?). There are always
   holes. Acceptance. Logos. The ewes are back, their backs dyed red. (Beautiful absences. Numerous
voices. Imps.) Up, down, up. Accepting tension. Gibber while you work. We all need to sleep. Blood
   makes noise
. Train circles round (of what?). Demons despise sound of shaking paper — guess what
I found: you do too
. Racine, Wisconsin. Backlit/underlit tree. Year: sunspots. The very act of writing is
   Utopia. Blinking at sunlight, stunned. And a lighter heart. 'You're loving this, aren't you? I'll stop.'