MARCUS SILCOCK
Strings 2
‘about lighthouses not having to move to save a ship’
September 2024
Flower Power
“Oh, and the night, the night, when wind full of cosmic space feasts on our faces.” – Kinnell
“Oh and night: there is night, when a wind full of infinite space gnaws at our faces” – Mitchell
“Oh and night, night when a wind filled with the cosmos tears at our faces” – Corn
“O and the night, the night, when the wind full of worldspace consumes our faces “ – Croggon
(From Rilke’s Duino Elegy 1)
I live in the margins with the howling winds of the Bora. What does that tell you. Goodbye land of lethargic ink. I’m riding the swift winds of graphite. That’s nice. I wrote my marginalia in pencil because the printed word was primary. My notes flights of fancy. But now it is everything. That’s the surface, but what’s beneath it. Immigrating to America. Writing in romantic cursive. It never really stuck. In high school the intellectual clicked their mechanical pencil. That’s where it started. The precisions. I thought it could make me smarter. My pencil is mechanical. It is from another order. 0.5 of cheap plastic. The whole word beneath it. Just back from the shop. I’m climbing the ladder of pencils. Staedtler Mars Micro 0.9. It is vainglorious. I’ve never gotten sticky with Goethe, but I’m tempted to sell my soul to this pencil. Darker and durable. It is not 0.5. There’s not a fine point on it. Chiseling silky precisions into this cheap notebook. I live in the margins with the howling winds of the Bora.
I live in the margins with the howling winds of the Bora. Peasoup on the hob. Fessup. You’re obsessed with the shape of letters. The natural gifts of strangers. Swallows swallow mosquitos. Lola barks at new smells roaming the hallways. Cackles of firecrackers. Distant drumming. Shamanistic firejumping. Crowds gather to moan and throb. Midsummer eve. Sea sprites and peat whiskey. Everyone jumps the fires. The teachers burn all the students work. The students burn all the teachers work. Everyone can start over in the blazing summer. I was married in tartan with the blazing sun behind me. Razor cheeks is what they called me. There is something healthy in the red wine. That’s why the French and Spanish eat cheese smoke and live long. Can you hear it. It is still burning. Although faintly. The fires in our belly are still burning. There are no angelic orders.
There are no angelic orders. Listening to the theme song of Hill Street Blues to quake my centre. You don’t smudge the pencil with the side of your hand. It’s the great railway journey with Lola (the dog) and Ewa for climate refuge. It’s tugging our purse strings. No it’s breaking the bank. No it’s once in a lifetime (what isn’t). Denim means from Nîmes, but we don’t want to go to Nimes. It is moving from one frying pan to another frying pan. We will keep going. One train after another with some breaks between. Three weeks in the Polish mountains. We look forward to welcoming you and your small, well-behaved companion. The wilds of the Schwartzwald brought forth fables. The wilds of Poland brought forth sea shanties. Eagles swoop the landscape. Evening stars tinkle their silver.
Evening stars tinkle their silver. This squeaky pencil is wrapped around my heart. The windowpanes wrap themselves in foggy blankets. My right eye is ballooning with its sky pimple. My right eye is a deflated football. Soak it in black tea. I scratch my knee for the 500th time. Teeth thinning? 4 out of 5 dentists recommend flossing before smoking. Your skeleton is waiting in the wings. Do you believe in your skin? 4 out of 5 dermatologists recommend liquid kiss from dominatrix. Give me your hand under the blankets. You can feel it too. Nipple tassels and flower power.
Nipple tassels and flower power. I lived in Trieste as a dog walker. I didn’t have a castle. Goodbye angel cake. Hello beefcakes. The pencil is mightier than the pen cause, you know, impermanence. Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again. That’s true. Oil slick rainbows. Sheep cheese on crackers. Cosmic wind chews our faces. The cacti on the balcony bloom pink flowers.
MARCUS SILCOCK is a surreal-absurd prose poet from Portadown, N. Ireland. He co-edits surreal-absurd for Mercurius magazine. Some of his poems can be found in Bruiser, Hobart, Hidden Peak Press, Buffalo (x8), Exacting Clam, and The Belfast Review. His book, Dream Dust, is forthcoming in 2025 from Broken Sleep Books. He lives in the land of rabbits. Find out more at: Never Mind the Beasts.
