england

Reading: Dandelions by Thea Lenarduzzi

“Behind the teller’s choices, conscious or otherwise, lies some kind of motivation, whether to entertain, to store for posterity, or to promote a particular image of herself” – Dandelions

The Book: A family biography of Thea Lenarduzzi’s family. Family within its various semantic fields; shifting from Italy to England, the family of mother and fatherlands. Grandmother centred in the field of view, with a focus shifting backwards and forwards in time and bringing sons, fathers, daughters, mothers into view. Or is that too clear a metaphor? There are no photos in the book, though there are photographers, and this nebulises the book, makes image blend into image in my head. Each image blends with images of the ‘old’, from other, flicked through, books.

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V.52

The world that reflections fall to
beneath the petrol station in
the rain – that world where things are good
how can we reach it? The world where

the chemical imbalances
are mostly corrected. In there
where people don’t get stuck. I love
all of my friends, I love you all.

But you need to go to buildings
everyday, in other cities.
Things are made difficult by this.
You need to tap at keys and make

small adjustments, and be harrassed
by parents as their children cry
and try to cope with complex stress.
There is no line. No prime matter

that would lie down beneath things and
smoothly answer questions. Like why
argent, a cross gules, prevails here?
a symbol of stupidity

flutters in the cold wind. As I
attempt to make myself think well,
reach that world dropping away now
beneath the rivers, beneath seas

Republic

The deep-house beats fall
from the window – hit
sunbeams combing the heat
fall down simmering streets

It’s royal wedding day – but I
can only focus on this
bunch of dead flowers,
strapped to a lamp-post –

The cellophane wrap flutters
around the dry remnants
framed by estates and hills
and glints from windscreens

I’m not saying something,
shocked by the light’s irradiance
the faintly dissonant organ
of which echoes softly pour

The National Express

i

Hurling through the misted landscape –
while Christian voices, here and there pray
like whispers of torque and warm rubber

ii

Buffeted by frosty wind in the night
snow erases the web of the tarmac
but the national anthem plays – deathless
rousing scraps of grey paper to stand

iii

Shadow eats the roads of the world