Saturday, March 15, 2014

GILES GOODLAND

NOTHING


"Nothing" is something I was working on when I was doing collage poems and combining them with erasure, a few years back, to produce a cross between a visual poem in which the snaking line of white in the poem stands in for the subject, the word 'nothing' and hence the idea of nothingness, or the invisible.




                                               Nothing

A                       that becomes a                      ness
a bit of a                       day. Nowt to write home about
a podiatry consult (a                       job that will take a file entry
A, a mesh of F and G, a                       sharp minor
all I had done was take a                       company and build
all-creating Word embirth'd a                      nesse
and born in sorrow, A                      here today, but
bound apprentice to a                      -to-do man
but even he cannot make a                      y play seem charming
court a Phantom, a Name, a                      :—We mistake
dazzle: but beyond that a                      ness. I never experienced
dear! For less than a                       the jealous can hear
did they negate a                      ness? Wouldn't that make it
down a                             track snaking east
English soldiers made a                       of the Indians, and many
frighten you; it is a                       of a part, a mere                      not
grievously irritable. A                       vexed him, and suspected
hash of Words, and a                      ness of Sense, I conceive
he is as much a                       in politics as though he had
his kindness. It was a                       gesture, but it totally unnerved
if they had found, were but a                       of a                       in respect
in a kiss, A touch, a                      hardly worth a name
in descent—and a                      izing of the Female
infinitesimal, at the core a                      ness, and yet not                     
intellectual abstraction, a                      a picturesque collocation
intentionless, the whole a                      And haply yet
is but a Point, a                      if compar'd with the other
Lord, what a                       is this little span We call a
love interest. It was a                       role in a big summer blockbuster
Man, Charlie Brown A                       burger for audiences of all age
may not be queer. He's just a                      which is worse
only on a something or a                       between Mr. Willoughby and
persons, instead of being a                      is a something; when they
prepare his lunch, a                      cheese omelette with frozen
shadow of a shade, A                       of the brain—a dream
this was a                       conversation in which he
thought, I feel what a                       I am! I'm like the poor Queen
to                      , lov'd a                      ,                       seen Or felt
was all a                       and a man was                       too
we paramours, So proudly on a                       for to vaunt it?
what I have heard call'd, a                      arian both in Politics &
who might have found a                      -doing hour Heavier
worshipping A                      but his self-made Images
yet it was a slight, almost a                       poem
you're a                       that happens to have my face







Giles Goodland is a UK poet living in London and working as a lexicographer. He has had books from Shearsman and Salt.













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