David Bowie Movements in Suite Major

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

sixty four sixty five

                     cutting off windy street
                     down the side-road past
                     the café now closed in

                     the evening night under
                     whitewashed windows
                     out from under the rain

                     and street light where
                     bricks turn seaweed-
                     green, is an office

                     which we all don’t
                     know about; well, I’m
                     gonna make it by my

                     selves strolling up
                     strolling down or
                     standing there making

                     a fool out of me over
                     street corners the next
                     day, with new eyes and

boots

Liza Jane, 1964; Louie Louie Go Home, 1964; I Pity the Fool, 1965; Take My Tip, 1965

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

Saturday

                                green acres with no boundary
                                level with the pavement and
                                octaves of grey lamp posts alongside
                                to walk deepening heart;

                                until the red-wallpaper evening
                                in poor light, when it all seems
                                futile again, waiting to traverse
                                that distance from the cubic planes of the cold station

That’s Where My Heart Is, 1965; I Want My Baby Back, 1965; Bars of the County Jail, 1965; You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving, 1965; Baby Loves That Way, 1965; I’ll Follow You, 1965; Glad I’ve Got Nobody, 1965; That’s A Promise, 1965; Can’t Help Thinking About Me, 1965

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

London Hearts

– o –

father’s – brown – world

mum’s bare wind-ow

– o –

soft steel tracking straight around
into another night

and morning faces quick and aquiline
make darts and words

that lace the daylight like the lamps
along the promenade to

bask along the sunny side of where we’ve grown
too much

until

I don’t – know – where, because
the streets – aren’t – there

anymore

London Boys, 1966

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

London Park in Greenwich town

somewhere under oak
amid drifts of fallen sycamore

lay the boundaries of iron and tumult of
leaning wall historically

drawing the mounds of centurely death bevelling
the crowded times when

lost was almost love
and love was almost possible

needlessly

Rubber Band, 1966

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

‘the hour before dinner –
the empire of dusk’

                           the heights of darkening wall
                           below the quietening classrooms
                           cannot stop the echo return
                           within the plastic football

                           the latched-shut of sash-window
                           sealed with lead-white gloss
                           cannot stop the penetration of
                           blue greys through the glass

                           the castor wheels and pillar-leg
                           of the lacquer-black piano cannot
                           stop the hammered strings
                           break across the carpet;

the time to stop will come
but not yet, not quite yet

There Is a Happy Land, 1966

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

went up to London and what did I see;
a Hammond organ ssmrrraeesshl everything,

spent it all to see
just how far I could be without; found basement security

far mistier than lemon far damper than mauve and too bad
three times descended

an ethic that tendered a dressed relief more colourful
and flowery than cotton

Do Anything You Say, 1966; Good Morning Girl, 1966; I Dig Everything, 1966; I’m Not Losing Sleep, 1966

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

1966 … actually sic

                           `sbread not love, their’s
                           n’owt queer as career
                           so grin ‘n’ glare it on a
                           magic carpet trip or too

                           strange lights unknown
                           in the tops of tall buildings
                           soul-cold friends of street
                           corners where people

                           pass where people don’t
                           `spare the heartbeat, guv,
                           coin of tenure, metal
                           clink on cloth pavement

                           never like a bed, never
                           like the toes of hope
                           in gladiator sandals with
                           no direction home just

                           the echoes of alleys
                           a thousand feet tall
                           and the air of chanting
                           around the emptiness

of it allllll-bsssssssh

Uncle Arthur, 1966; She’s Got Medals, 1966; Join the Gang, 1966; Did You Ever Have a Dream, 1966; We Are Hungry Men, 1966; Sell Me a Coat, 1966; Little Bombardier, 1966; Maid of Bond Street, 1966; Silly Boy Blue, 1966

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

seventy two, perhaps

it got to my birth and
there was nothing to write

it got to the start and there
were nothing but tin walls

it got to make sense but
there was nothing but planning

it got time to work but
no time to be

it came time to proffer with
only two steps to fall

                                and now it is the future
                                and I wonder when it will
                                                                     all
                                                                     just
                                                                     stop

Come And Buy My Toys, 1966

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                           ‘a Method sneezer’, me, no
                           gnome depths to which I
                           won’t dig and corpse to
                           find the earthly essence;

                           who – are all these little
                           geezers getting under me
                           feet; g’wn, get outside,
                           allyya, `need t’get

                           things done, need t’get
                           things under m’feet
                           agin; tell them: I will
                           live – neighhh – through

crescendoeing cascade of chordage

Please Mr. Gravedigger, 1966; The Laughing Gnome, 1967; The Gospel According to Tony Day, 1967; When I Live My Dream, 1967; Love You Till Tuesday, 1967

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

when sky was filled with
building, on another street

corner in the other world:
new relief of outbreath,

slow smile rasps the throat,
casting across rooftops;

new `scape of torso roll-
ing beneath the dress

of old; a new happening
of fairground stance in all

of our midst with organ
sunlight in all our eyes

I’m Waiting for the Man, 1967; Let Me Sleep Beside You, 1967; Karma Man, 1967; In The Heat of the Morning, 1968

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                                                              `snot good enough cos I
                                                              `mnot old enough t`see                           `ow
                                              th’ wryme ‘n’ th’ whrythm’s wrought
                                              `tween `scend ing warp ‘n’
                                mended weft with
                                me errant word or me gloonfy face

quite …
… yet

London Bye Ta-Ta, 1968; When I’m Five, 1968; Ching A Ling, 1968; The Mask, 1968

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

… oh,

                      here it comes again, between
                      the warp and weft of chording;
                      all the engines of thrust, all
                      the snare of history, all propulsion

                      `round various turnings, trails
                      left vaporising; counting … up
                      to crescendo, looking up to tread,
                      to lacunae; to ascend is to lose,

                      to step through that door: fall/
                      ascent mean nothing off-sphere;
                      tumult of horizon sitting in my
                      kitchen, stumbling on my planet,

                      there’s nothing I can do: there
                      are – so – many – more – chords,
                      variants on a minor, travelling to
                      where we are all along, feeling

                      very still … lost where we all are;
                      the sounds of 1969 looked very
                      different today – loved-up, peopled-
                      up, gods upped be-coming – up;

~O~~~

                      down the slippey ascension of wish,
                      up to the echoing boroughs of cloud-
                      bank, where the damp damp dawn
                      falls silent to urban horizon, higher

                      for to widen the neighbourhood
                      streets and higher to deepen the road-
                      side trees; none of it didn’t, but it
                      [would have] seemed that way

Space Oddity, 1969, Cygnet Committee, 1969, Memory of a Free Festival, 1969

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

pillows and empty poplars
is all can be said now of the

tangerine red that hedged
through the rows and mud

ruts were nascent to the
ploy of reaching brows

where the same grey-blues
that ever seeped through

the cold sash window and
echoed about the high white

covings, were seen again
where the goblins leered

Letter to Hermione, 1969 An Occasional Dream, 1969

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                                oh, but she had no boundaries
                the distant hills came straight for me [vague planets in the heavens], I had
                                              I had to demur
                                to keep herself sane
                to keep myself from speaking what
                                              I [did not] know, both

life [‘n’ death]
legerdemain

Janine, 1969 [clap]; Conversation Piece, 1969

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

Nostalgia for Samsara

look of faces, face of look and the fidgeting
curls and weave of sight between the walls

where children watch elders reclined and
solemn-veiled beneath laughter and barter,

bittersweet-inured to their shamèd Have and
wanton squander amid scattered teak rubble

Wild-Eyed Boy from Freecloud, 1969

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

Shonagh

                                stood up
                on the steep hill in the woods
                                arms akimbo
                to keep balance like a tree, made
                                to climb
higher with ape face and swinging blond hair grown long and hipster flares that showed her belly when she pointed earlier in the day with nothing but her upward stare
                                sat down,
                composed with the boy because she wanted a kiss
                                who wasn’t me

The Prettiest Star, 1970

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                                     high over skies
                                     the dark port
                                     edges purple,

                                     with wooden
                                     plate the moon
                                     becomes green,

                                     the red lantern
                                     shines no light –
                                     the only glam-

                                     our of our life –
                                     just don’t look
                                     at her eyes

Buzz the Buzz, 1970, Amsterdam, 1970

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                                shadows whip `round me
                                sometimes before you’ve
                                thought your words

                                you cannot help it
                                I have echoes in my eyes
                                from all the “I”s that faded

                                too soon to cast open their
                                only desires left hanging tantalic,
                                your monkey’s hand held tight in the

shell

The Width of a Circle, 1970

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                                reverse
                of usual effulgent horizons opening like shallow waves
                                              logarithmically
                                wanting
                fall-to-knees mortality and tears over abundance, equally
                                              untenable
                                              atrophic

                                stepped to the earth
                                from the mountains
                                a god stood like a man

                                down by the docks, by
                                the piles, while a city grew
                                and festered all about

                                the river: hatch and cross,
                                pen and ruler, private
                                and bitter, sphere and

                                plane, all with woven
                                curtain pulled, defeated,
                                across every portal, and

                                no room for Quiver of
                                Tiffany, only a rage that
                                I cannot control, after all

The Supermen, 1970; Saviour Machine, 1970; Running Gun Blues, 1970

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

and then there is a ready-delivered weariness
in life after things start to echo: a theremin note

receding back towards past wistful horizon;
and then the footsteps march muddy over

recalcitrant tarmac, the tyres keep turning
through skiddy porridge despite all steer;

it starts as top-spin kwinkle, first off, then
the taran-tadaa of new-stood sight, to the headaches

that leave the face all palsied, until the pallid
cocoon folds in to snuff the tired trend of hope

After All, 1970

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                           with each miss, I find my place
                           with each ad, I play some more
                           with each venture, I diminish

                until the far side of town is my mineral self
                where my breaths waft across the skyline entropic
                to their exponential growth until plagues seem quite feasible

now

All the Madmen, 1970; Saviour Machine, 1970

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                                passing by the edge of the park under
                                occasional orange lamp, the dark trees
                                turn unable to contain the floating
                                brain of revolving redness in the branches

                                ah, but the city lights, spread about like
                                dust reassure that there is darken sky
                                without passion that moves free and sudden
                                over only orb and lonely branch like ink

She Shook Me Cold, 1970; Black Country Rock, 1970

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                           am I really the only one
                           who doesn’t know that
                           buildings are stage props
                           to keep illusion of form
                           and land from blowing
                           away in the night wind

                           the echo of stairwells
                           is inevitable reminder
                           the topple of vistas a
                           tease, but no one saw
                           old James Castle jump
                           we never lost control

The Man Who Sold the World, 1970

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                           lying still enough in the quiet of bedclothes
                           you can hear the pops in the sky as the
                           clouds settle and the resolve of form as

                           the trees are passed, all big-flared steps
                           through the park like the coming cartoons,
                           into the suburbs, (across the globe), but

                           always back to the room above the shops
                           under height of building pipework and the
                           block of flats, where the brick and grime

                           ignore the swirling litter … but then later,
                           among strumming, the words tumble like
                           boulders, each to their own defining clunk

Holy Holy, 1971; Oh! You Pretty Things, 1971; Fill Your Heart, 1971; How Lucky You Are (Miss Peculiar), 1971; Hang On To Yourself, 1971

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

the wide wide landscape and the family tree
are just the same when found through mist;

blues rising from the homestead chimney
in the grey and green glade of, everwhere;

then everything stepped up over the far
mountains mauve of orange horizon

filled the sky to cross the desert in a
single bound; whispered sweet nothing

into my ear with heightened register as
the clouds pointed unutterably across

the lemon-steel sky, far too wide and grey
and blue to close my mouth, over;

I’ll have to levitate, ascend above the roots
of no return – tug-snapping, pull-holding snap –

you could see, there then, that this was not
about love this was all about being in love

Lightning Frightening, 1971; Moonage Daydream, 1971

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

                                                      on second thought
                                                      I’ll keep my mind
                                                      with open tunings

Andy Warhol, 1971

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

after the storm
KRAKKK

talking heads
bickered about

dodging each
others’ agendas

on institution
tvs, when the

Joker breathed
“Darling”

Queen Bitch, 1971

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

down in the suburbs the
piano-filled and the sun-

weaved through the trellis
and wisteria and dappled,

yes dappled, along the
whitewashed green wall

Song for Bob Dylan, 1971

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

carpet worn
to the backing

                                   warps and wefts
                                   blew through
                                   leafing trees while

                                   charcoal belly
                                   of cloud hung
                                   below the horizon

Kooks, 1971

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

Life on Mars?

silent afternoon silver atmosphere
silver cars on the street

in Woolworth’s the books
slide quietly off the shelves

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

Life on Mars?, 1971

Is There
Life on Mars?

                      new leaves
                      on new branches
                      grown

sideways and pointing
east

through the old
branches the sun

                      sets
                      polishing the tin sky
                      otherwise

seamlessly grey and the birds
chirp

Life on Mars?, 1971

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

weight of high sash windows

the under-cupboard shadow
hung lime tendrils in daylight

air out the corner of my eye
without looking it took the

whole afternoon to slowly
drift across the blue and green

kitchen achieving a seamless
high grey sky – plant shake on the piano

Quicksand, 1971

-===¦¦ “B” ¦¦~~~-//–¦O\/\/!!!===________-___

          spikes in constant
          exchange through the pane
          try in vain to
          puncture the sky; sky

          rising
          but – what – shall – I –
          be; steps upwards, steps
          aside, but – what – is – going – on

          look-away-
          turn-head-to-friend –
          check, with love –
          look-back

          shall I leaf the books,
          shall I lengthen the wick,
          interrogate streets, but –
          will – the – streets – listen …

          exiting languidly in the late green afternoon
          amongst the pipes, back windows and
          soot-stained Victorian houses all about
          the lonely square