To Posterity
A sequence of poems by
Rik Roots
Copyright © Richard James Roots 2011
Smashwords Edition.
This
chapbook forms part of the RikVerse.
The
RikVerse is a living book,
updated regularly and available for
viewing
online at the RikWeb
website
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only. then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedicated
to those who are
gone before their time,
too many
of whom
I knew and loved.
Table of Contents
Manhattan
Flower
»
My tall dahlia. Scythed ...
Plus
»
Today I tested positive ...
Novel
»
The last word typed, I thank ...
Gossip
»
I heard your news. A quarrel of tits ...
Mandarins
»
It takes a squint to glimpse him ...
The
Office as a Form of Inspiration
»
These angularities that pin me in ...
Locus
Delicti
»
Would you wear a killer's cardigan?
Slap
Stick
»
Imagine a copse of clown-trees ...
In
Dark Places
»
Cold in the ice - sparkles on needles ...
The
Lammas sun has gone
»
Beyond the glassed face, fish ...
Prophet
»
Her pivot is her globe ...
Things
I Love About My Bed
»
The bole of the headpost has faces ...
Reverie
Inc.
»
We've assembled a new dream for you ...
Elemental
Friend
»
Peter watches his lion lie ...
Banshee
»
She dabs his hot form ...
Lych
Woman
»
They hoist old grandad Clegg ...
Portsmouth
Thoughts
»
With the marksman's lead threaded ...
To
Posterity
»
I am not your friend ...
Beko
CDA648FS Silver
»
My new box sits in a corner ...
Painting
»
Walls are not blank. They soak in lives, each pore ...
Driving,
not Driven
» Did I notice the signs? Perhaps
...
Anniversary
»
The shock wears thin ...
Other books by Rik Roots at Smashwords.com
Manhattan Flower
My tall
dahlia. Scythed
by the wings of dragons,
white flies on the
blue sky.
Litter
caught in the storm.
My fiery bright dahlia,
it blooms: it
blooms.
Switch
off my cold eye. Frost
blackens its lace-vein leaves,
my
dragon-axed dahlia.
Plus
Today I
tested positive
for the blood plague. I watched
for corpuscle
explosions
as the tech pulled more red pints
for the counting
of things -
I saw no telltale fizz in the tubes.
Do the
motes whistle
as they busy themselves constructing
new motes?
They're happy
to theive the labours of my cells,
rip apart the
curtains
of phospholipids and take the stage.
Beyond
the clinic walls
a cleaner sweeps cherry petals
from asphalt -
she sweats
in a slip of sunshine between clouds.
I am as numb
as flowers:
I still have much sunshine to catch.
Novel
The
last word typed, I thank
my characters. 'No problem,'
says
one as it plucks away
a face and wipes clean
its
head. 'We are always happy
to help birth a new story.'
Already
I see a sketch of webs
I could lay on their shapes -
these
dolls who halter my text
and make eyes skip through scenes.
'I
believe you know the way
out,' the faceless one adds.
Gossip
I heard
your news. A quarrel of tits
clamp claws around the sprung
twigs
of the sycamore - huffs of warm air
have cracked its
buds; so pale,
these new leaves, as they stretch.
The sun plays
catch-me with the clouds,
a roil of damp shadows battling
across
a pitch of sky. Your news -
flew from mouth to ear by wire and
wave,
it sets like bark around memories.
'Why do you break
us?' creak the buds
to the wind; 'why do you rip
us?'
bluster the clouds. Around the twigs
claws dig in,
beaks bicker, wings flap.
Mandarins
(This being a True Account of an Occurrence taking place on the Second Floor of No. 1, Horse Guards Road, in the Offices above the Chancellor's Suite, working Necessarily Late one Evening in the Month of March, 2006)
It takes a squint to glimpse him:
don't look -
he's
there! A man
who stares across the room,
stippled from his
rightful time,
bemused
by desks and wide glass
panes, woodless screens, sootless
lights
that make his inky fingers glow.
I see
him frown beneath
his tattered wig, a blot of mud
or shit
still wet around his calf.
Why is
he here? His arm
curls around rolled parchments
wound in cotton
ribbons.
When I
twitch my head
a touch, he starts, returns the glance.
See
us, his eyebrows arch,
both
lost within
this Treasury, too poor
to seek escape.
The Office as a Form of Inspiration
These
angularities that pin me in
are pinned with cloth of woven mauve
and I
must pin instructions here. The plastic rails
enforce
confinements, one to each square cell;
there are no doors. A
circle sequence keeps
me close, its arcs and sweeps a sturdy
guard.
No
doors - an oblong bright in blues and whites
displays an arc of
planes, each green and shaped
identically from some machine
within
its pole. They wave at me: look how we break
from
shells! Look how we swing in puffs and scuffs
of molecules that
buff us, stroke our dance!
No
doors - I hate the dance of shapes across
instructions pinned by
me to my mauve cloth.
They say: translate us while the arc sweeps
low.
I bow my head and worship; fingers pray
across the coded
blocks that bounce and click -
my alchemies dissect some thoughts
and pin
them on
a screen that feels like silk when stroked.
As sigils grow in rows
I meld, become
the incantation. Between the pulpy flats
that
hide my desk a cupid stalks, its jaws
are primed to stab results
together, sense
from nonsense - still the fingers sweep their arc
across
their sequenced numbers. Still I pray
and my release remains a
sentence away.
Locus Delicti
Would
you wear a killer's cardigan?
It's only wool, see, a weave of
sheep
caught on needles for the looping.
And
that ring, a sweetheart's gift,
has no magic; the stones
glint
metaphors - a garnet's love.
Those
locks of your hair I curl
in my wallet? A keepsake, no more:
a
clipped crime for a stolen moment.
Slap Stick
Imagine
a copse of clown-trees,
she says, with revolving bow ties
for
leaves and bright red nose buds.
Do the
flowers squirt brass bees
with nectar, I ask. Oh yes,
she
agrees: it is a necessary prank;
how
else can the shoe seeds form?
They dangle in long pairs from the
boughs,
you know, and drop with the first frost
to the
hard ground, slapping down
among puff balls and stinkhorns:
who
painted your face so sad?
In Dark Places
Cold in
the ice - sparkles on needles
shaken as chips skip from the
trunk,
resin-scent curls moulting: a death
of seasons. That axe
is treasured.
Old wood slots within the steel that lops
root
from bole, warming the hands
that swirl it in arcs through air
as
brittle as decorations.
Good
will requires flames, a heap
of amber tongues licking goose
meat
turned in lines over the stony pit.
We are
in dark places, my love.
We can sit knee to hip and wait
beneath
our stencilled angels -
but he won't come. He has no trust
in
scratch-mark wings or cold hearths.
Still, I treasure these
bricks, know:
our darkness has warmth, a comfort
of arms and
dry cloth for the wrapping.
A
stew needs more than one bean
to thicken the broth. We could plant
it,
climb high and sleep in his beard tonight.
I
bought you a present, wrapped
in scraps as torn as pockets. It
is
- a bribe, I suppose, a new axe -
its shiny shape caught my
eyes
like decorations dangled from boughs.
You can keep it by
the door, if you like,
or hung on the wall where our fire
burned
before I bricked it away, for safety.
The Lammas sun has gone
Beyond
the glassed face, fish
swim through mulm like ghosts
who haunt
cellar barrels
sifting gassed yeast broth;
I'll
net you a drink, neck
the skin that sheens from nape
to blade,
sift the hairs
weaving your back in whorls -
and
after? There is no after.
This face is glassed, the glass
is
froth; ghost-white worms
sift mulm, feed fish, swim on.
Prophets
Her
pivot is her globe.
It sits between us, a gem
of unbubbled
glass swirled
in transluscent reflections.
Her
hoops are for show:
I show her a palm, pin
my eyes to her
pulled lobe
as she seeks secrets in lines.
My lode
is her creased face -
matching gulleys channel anger
from the
nip of her nose up;
botox could veil her pain.
'I
can see money,' she says.
I can see addictions etched
in
her jaundiced fingers
as they stroke my wrist.
We
thank each other, sip
at thin china, guess weather.
As I leave,
I see patterns
in clouds: ill omens in greys.
Things I Love About My Bed
The
bole of the headpost has faces
caught in the vein of the wood,
dryads
set to guard my dreams from harm.
Slats
keep my flesh from sinking
into forgotten, unvacuumed carpets
and
the moths who feast on threads.
I could
surround my head with pillows,
helmet my skull in
space-tempered
foams; one is enough for my neck.
Sheets
knot my limbs to the frame,
cot me safe as I sail on breath
to
the statics that wash the stars.
Reverie Inc.
We've
assembled a new dream for you,
as per spec, with added
colours
enamelled on the spelter frame.
The
cellar is fresh-hewn, with frets
of lime for the dangling of
drops:
that pool of neuroses comes gratis.
We can
supply extra veneers
of your deity of choice at cost,
and
laminate the clouds with eyes.
For
maximum pleasure, the fancy
should be applied with even
strokes
and allowed to leaven in sweat.
Remember,
there's no shame in nudity,
not in your head; these strangers
who
stare and chase are bespoke.
We
thank you for your custom. Please
dispose of your delusions
carefully
after use. Consume before midsummer.
Elemental Friend
Peter
watches his lion lie
in the bucket where he set it:
first to
flare is the tuft
of the beastling's tail-tip, curled
in the
pail's cylindrical seam -
its tempo twitch a cub's annoyance
at
the chafe of infant constraints.
Peter,
too, is impatient.
He coils a smoke-rope tendril
in his lung as
his toy's loin
grows tuffs of lemon-lick curls.
As a chesty
ember glows and dims
and glows amid the shoddy; he smiles
and
shifts on his knee, and watches.
The lad
claps as a collar of mane
erupts from the neck - a pride
of
flames set to stalk and chase
across the dry-weave carpet
savannah.
His lion looks up at the sound,
lifts a paw to let
the lap
of heat sharpen claws; it pounces
at
Peter, struggles to lever
its haunch across the melted rim
of
its lair, leaps up to reach
the table hide where the boy
huddles
with his matches; when
he proffers a hand to ruffle
the singed
fur the toy roars -
a deep
rumble that sets a gale
among the bedroom curtains
and drives
the angel mobile
to dance on the pins of soot
snowflakes
blooming the air;
across Peter's peach-fuzz wrists
a tight new
glove knits to skin.
Banshee
She dabs his hot form
with
damp cloths, smooths
tremors from his limbs.
I
see two faces: bliss
amid the scale hide
and eyes that sing.
Zinc balms swathe
blisters:
she wraps him in swaddle;
snow on a new-sown grave.
My
lungs rack at
each breath. She reeks
of rose and soaps.
Wires weave monitors to
skin
and graphs dance on screens;
Her claw rests on his brow.
Cool,
she is; calm.
I am at her mercy
and all is good.
She
slips away and a machine
wails an escape: his crisp
flesh
shackle falls still.
Lych Woman
They
hoist old grandad Clegg
across the stiles and down
the track
feet first, their arms
a sheen of moonlight joined
around his
final box.
Eyes
closed, she sees parades
not yet come along the road,
each
witnessing a source
of strength. The bench beneath
the
churchyard gate is damp
against her legs, now numb
from sitting
still as a ghost.
Old
Clegg was good for the gossip
shared over steepened tea -
she'll
miss his smutty wisdom
when he pops his clogs, she thinks.
There's
more to view: A coffin
tops the hill, so small
a man can lug it
alone.
Her John was four when Jesus
called him back home one
day,
an autumn drowning. Thumbs
of fog massage her
shoulders,
ease her sticking joints.
The last to pass is fuzzy
-
just a shape of muddy light
above the path. A voice
long
buried hints in her ear:
'... a crate for her who waits.'
Portsmouth Thoughts
With
the marksman's lead threaded
in his spine, they took him down
to
settle in the rocking dark, alert
to the cracks of battle:
splinter spars;
powder pillows heft from copper store
to
cannon; sharp wine in water; shouts;
sweats. He bled in his ship
of skin,
three hours to reach death's dock.
Another
man has no plaque, nor grave
beyond a weight of water. He has
instead
a glass display, labels to mark him:
'barber-surgeon
drowned with his chest.'
Here are his knives, his herbs, a
leather
of shoe, some dice, some coins, a bone
nit-comb. He has
no face; his blood
rusts in Solent muds. Still he was here.
This
boat is all lignin bone in mist,
a preservation of what was once
great,
and lost, and rescued. I pay good coin
to view her - for
she is my history
as much as the bricks and stones
of the town
surrounding us, the heroes
who watched these docks slip past,
a
clinch in our tide's slow pulse.
To Posterity
'Greetings. It is possible that some word of me may have come to you, though even this is doubtful ...' (Petrarch)
I. For Poets Eighty Years Hence
I am
not your friend.
I have no ears to hear you.
My
teeth - mere rattles.
My dirk tongue - dissolved in dusts.
Your
breath is not mine.
Your dreams leave me unshaken.
In
myriad ways
we are separate species.
II. The Lazarus Sign
When my
neighbour dies she crosses
her arms to her breast; her trembly
fingers
butterfly around the sags of her neck -
'a
reflex, no more,' says the nurse
who cradles a slosh of warm
plastic
bed pan. 'You should not be here
to
see it.' I nod my thanks, watch as
her hands fall still,
settle in the curl
of her collapsed chest, and cool.
III. The Bones of Levissi
After
the bus departs, silence. Ahead
the town invites us to walk its
streets, a wreck
of tumbled roofs and weed-blown mortars
stacked
within its bowl of suntan hills. Instead
we sit and
read the guide, a summary
of dates and states and settlements that
ripped
the artisans from hearths and tools and shipped
them
overseas to Rhodes. We scope the debris
and
climb a path to view the churches; here
we whisper comments, offer
hands to push
ourselves through glass-less window gaps and
bash
the thorny brush apart, two pioneers
discovering - a well.
I look within:
an oubliette of strangers guised in grins.
IV. We Make Room in the Ground for Incomers
In
Crete they pay a priest to bleach the bones before
the village
gathers round to check the dead for worth;
the struts of good and
pious folk are free of stain.
My bones are cracked to charcoal. I
am not your friend.
Beko CDA648FS Silver
My new
prize sits in a corner,
a man-tall coffin of containments
finished
with spun-chrome doors
that puck-pucker when I tug at
the gully
handles, then sucker back
to the square when I let go.
It is a
beautiful void, my box,
a puzzle of diamond shelves
and drawers
hung on white grooves,
uncluttered invitations
for the stacking
of meats,
cartoned milk, pickles.
It hums
at me: see, I work
as you fight grime in wet suds.
It
wants me to feed it, let it hug
the souls of breads and cakes
in
its timeless chill. So easy
to clingfilm memories and pack them
safe
and fresh in its cuddle
and forget them for a while. 'Alan
would have loved you,' I tell it,
aloud, as I turn back
to my stack
of spattered plates and resume
the wiping of
patterns from clay.
Painting
Walls
are not blank. They soak in lives, each pore
in the mortar a pit
to house outbursts and tears.
We
chose the scheme together: a brush of faint cream;
a slice of
simnel; a feather of fresh-hatched chick.
And so
we paint: this emulsion stroke shall cover
the time we argued the
length of a bottle of whisky.
I
texture the colour with cobwebs, old nets to catch
forgotten
meals, parties; the husks of anniversaries.
As the
room grows in its new coat I follow your lines:
dab wet gloss on
the skirting, wipe spats from my hair.
When it
is done, we make a good memory - a kiss -
for the walls to record.
A cat-hair glides in the fume.
Driving, not Driven
Did I
notice the signs? Perhaps
it was the tone to your parked purr,
or
the way your seat cuddled into me
as I pulled the belt to a
hug
across my full-inflated chest.
At
every junction you chuckled,
the choke from your old dirge
gone.
Each time my hand reached down
to re-gear our touch
lingered, warm.
No, I
caught no sign of our truce:
the metal fretworks decking the
street
stole my eyes from your dash. Today
we fought killers
beyond the windshield,
partners in our driving crimes.
Anniversary
The
shock wears thin
after a while, like skin
punctured once too
often.
I have
grown a callus
smile, wry and polite
- almost honest.
Ruby
and I check my numbers
like forensic accountants,
a joint
taskforce:
my
flesh-economy saps
are trending higher
for whites this quarter
and I
no longer suffer
blue burps after meals,
which is positive
news.
About the author
Rik was born in the small village of Dymchurch on the Romney Marshes in Kent, England. Dymchurch has three Martello Towers and a station on the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway. This was Rik's world for the first 24 years of his life, except for those six terms away at college - the North East Surrey College of Technology, that is: Rik somehow managed to fail his final school exams and thus never made it to university.
Poetically, Rik has been writing since he was 14 or 15. He happily acknowledges that no work from that early period survives, thanks to a fortuitous kitchen fire which may or may not have been started deliberately. The kitchen was relatively unharmed, in case you were worrying.
Rik's major claim to 'proper' poetic fame is being part of the group that established Magma Magazine - he even edited Magma 6, for his sins. The magazine's subsequent success has nothing to do with Rik; he left the Management Board a few weeks before Magma 7 was published.
Rik's main publishing credentials are, strangely enough, in Magma Magazine. Nowadays he rarely submits poems to journals and has no plans to seek 'proper' venues for his chapbooks and manuscripts - Rik has a website, after all, which makes him very happy!
On a broader note, Rik is currently studying for that elusive degree with the Open University, and writing science fiction novels. Rik used to work for Her Majesty's Civil Service which is, he says, a perfect training ground for people wanting to write novels based on alternate realities and fantasy.
Rik currently lives in London, for his sins. His hobbies include causing trouble in various online venues and inventing languages. He also codes up websites - like this one.
Find
Rik on ...
Smashwords
Twitter
Facebook
The
RikWeb website
The
Rik Files blog
Other books by Rik Roots at Smashwords.com
The Gods in the Jungle
The jungle city of Bassakesh holds the keys to the future of the Vreski Empire. It is the sole source of the valuable Vedegga dye; it is also home to the mysterious Servants, who harvest the dye.
Delesse, the Bassakesh Governor's daughter, is marrying Loken, heir to one of the most powerful Clans in the Empire - whose leaders, Loken's own Father and uncle, are plotting to disrupt the dye harvest as part of their wider plans to win the aged Emperor's throne.
When those hasty plans go awry a terrible plague is unleashed across Bassakesh, bringing widespread death and chaos.
Aided by a collection of survivors and Servants, Delesse and Loken must travel through the jungles to face down and defeat the people who not only threaten the Empire's stability, but also ruined their wedding.
Set on a planet far from Earth, The Gods in the Jungle is an investigation of the drives and desires, fears and beliefs of the various peoples and classes of a crumbling society, through the eyes of those immediately involved in events which threaten to bring an Empire to its knees.