Tag: Gabriel Smy

Oak Beach

The black police dog winced
as its paws touched the thorns
on the bushes by the side
of a remote beachside highway.

A little reluctantly, the cadaver dog
followed its police handler into
the Long Island brush, looking
for yet more human remains.

We always say ‘another day in paradise’.
The wind whistled through the reeds
and the brush crackled
as the cadaver dog carried on sniffing

Selected text from a BBC news article about bodies found on Long Island, 7 April 2011.

Apologia Ignis

We incorrectly stated
that Julian Brooker, twenty three, of Brighton,
was blown fifteen feet into the air
after accidentally touching
a live railway line.

His parents have asked us to make clear
he was not turned into a fireball,
was not obsessed with the number twenty-three
and didn’t go drinking on that date every month.

Julian’s mother did not say,
during or after the inquest,
her son often got on all fours
creeping around their house
pretending to be Gollum.

From an apology in The Sun, 29 April 2005.

Unfurl unfold

I would shape myself into your pocket.
I will shake, sneak, shrink, slip
I was shapeless infant to your pocket.

I was shaking and I disappeared
I was thinking I would disappear
I would shrink and
I will sink and

I wish ink and I would disappear.

I will slip into the groove and cut me up.
And cut me off. You cut me off.

There’s an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds
Where the wings
And it won’t take root
And there I’ll
So now I’ll
Tonight I’ve set you free.

Just to feel
Just to feed your fast ballooning head.

We would shrink and then
We will shake and we’ll be quiet as mice.

Take the lotus flowers into my room.
The bird lights float
The bird that’s flown
Put this flower
A bird has flown into my room.

Mm, moments float into my room.

‘Cos all I want is the moon upon a stick.
A man upon a stake.

I dance around the pit; the darkness is beneath.
Dancing round the pain. The darkness is relief.

Compiled from fans’ transcripts for Radiohead’s Lotus Flower, released Feb 2011 with no lyrics.

Backing for old age

Foulness, say, is light.
Not altogether courteous, almost icy,
nothing but a party type.

July nuts cracked with criminal intent
Underwear that’s left to hang about.
Leave record in river.

Spirits for composer and poet
Reader’s possessive,
Spots hesitation with less careful cut.
Plant makes radio almost quiet.

Clues from the Guardian cryptic crossword 28 February 2010.

The Tip of the Bud of the Lotus

In a certain lake swarming with geese and cranes,
The tip of a bud of lotus was seen one span above the water.
Forced by the wind, it gradually moved, and was submerged at a distance of two cubits.
O mathematician, tell quickly the depth of the water.

Lilavati

There is something divine in the science
of numbers. Like God, it holds the sea
in the hollow of its hand. It measures
the earth; it weighs the stars; it illumines
the universe; it is law, it is order,
it is beauty. And yet we imagine
that its highest end and culminating point
is book-keeping by double entry.

From Longfellow’s novel Kavanagh, preceded by a translation from Bhaskaracharya’s 12th-century Sanskrit text Lilavati, via The Lumber Room.

The Mystery of Pittkapples Stone

Mrs. Gordon of Coneregie lies close
to the north dyke near the middle.
Miss Nans Leslie of Pittkapple
lies below Pittkapples stone.

Mr. George Mereson lies
at the south dyke at Mr Reid’s head.
Mr. Reid lies at the south side
of Pitfodle’s stone next to the dyke.

Mrs. Ann Allan or Cambell, wife
of ––– Allan, of the Coast Guard Station, Cove,
was buried second grave,
south of Bishop Grant’s grave.

Mr. John Goodsman, lies in the north
side of Isobel Gordon, close by her.
Mrs. Rankin lies at the head
of Bishop Grant’s, below a stone.

Bishop Grant lies in the middle
of west end of the Pittkapples stone.
For Pittkapples stone read Pittfodle’s.
Miss Wishart lies near the stone in the middle of it.

Mr. Alexander McNab was buried
in the Snow Churchyard with his daughter
in the grave next to Bishop Grant’s
stone on the north side.

James, infant son of Capt. Kyle,
was buried in the Snow Churchyard
in the grave betwixt Pitfodles
and Mr. Massie’s stone.

A child of Mr. McDonald lies
in the grave next to the north dyke
opposite Miss Rankin’s gravestone.
Bishop Geddes lies in Bishop Grant’s grave.

Miss Margaret Cruickshank lies
in the north side of Pittfodle’s stone
close by it. Mrs. Gordon,
his sister lies in his grave.

18th and 19th Century burial records for Snow Churchyard, Aberdeen.

This is the cow

This is the cow. She must be milked every morning so that she will produce milk and the milk must be boiled in order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’

The cow is a successful animal.
Also he is quadrupud, and because
he is female, he give milk, but will do
when he is got child. He is same like God,
sacred to Hindus and useful to man.
But he has got four legs together.
Two are forward and two are afterwards.

His motion is slow only because he
is of asitudinious species.
Also his other motion is useful
to trees, plants as well as making flat cakes
in hand and drying in the sun. Cow is
the only animal that extricates
his feeding after eating. Then afterwards
she chew with his teeth whom are situated
in the inside of the mouth. He is
incessantly in the meadows in the grass.

His only attacking and defending
organ is the horn, specially so when
he is got child. This is done by knowing
his head whereby he causes the weapons
to be paralleled to the ground of earth
and instantly proceed with velocity
forwards.

He has got tails also, but not
like similar animals. It has hairs
on the other end of the other side.
This is done to frighten away the flies
which alight on his cohoa body
whereupon he gives hit with it.

The palms
of his feet are soft unto the touch. So
the grasses head is not crushed. At night time
have poses by looking down on the ground
and he shouts his eyes like his relatives,
the horse does not do so. This is the cow.

From an essay on ‘the cow’ for the Indian Civil Services Exam.