a small folio of poets : engerland
from Big Song
Birds the birds. I pick them up and I put them back down again. I pick them up and I put them back down again. Birds the birds. Birds are difficult to pick up but they are harder to put down. Have you ever tried to put a bird down it is more difficult than you might expect in the same way that climbing down a mountain is harder than climbing up. Writing something down is easy. Anything can be written down. Anything can be written down in the dark. The dark can be written down. It is important to be in the dark when you write anything down. Anyone can be made to say anything by writing anything down. Writing something down is easy. I can be written down. I can be written down in the dark. The dark can be written down. But birds cannot be written down unless you have held them in your hands first because they are sensitive creatures and in this way they are related to stones. Sea birds are related to stones. When I talk about birds I am more often than not talking about sea birds. Gulls. Cormorant. Petrels. Tern. A course red stone mottled with salt and calcium deposits. I throw it into the sea. A white conical shell. I throw it along the beach into the stones. Other stones. A smooth slate coloured rock with patches of iron oxide. I put it in my pocket until I can decide what I want to do with it. Of course one does not have to decide to do anything with a smooth slate coloured rock covered in patches of iron oxide. The trees and the wind and the voices in the trees and the wind and the birds and the trees and the wind and the birds and the trees and the voices in the trees and the wind and the stones moving underfoot. The stones moving underfoot. Underfoot the stones moving. A dead dogfish. A dead dogfish on the stones. A length of blue rope approximately 2 meters. There is a language forming a red language buried within. Thousands of language seeds have germinated everywhere I go I see them growing. As they grow sounds are made. Glottals. Dentals. Primal. They like being touched they do not like being touched they are as much a part of the ocean as the ocean is part of the rain. I put them down and I pick them back up again. These are the new words though we have no idea what they are destined to mean or whether it is possible for them to mean anything. Anything can mean anything if you write anything down. I am writing this down and it means something. It means something very important about the nineteen eighties it means absolutely absolutely nothing. Look. I am counting the fingers on my left hand I am counting the fingers on my right hand. I am counting the toes on my left foot I am counting the toes on my right foot. I count all of the sea birds that I see in one day and then I add all of these things together because adding things together gives you a whole out of a set of otherwise unconnected data. Now rip it up. Rip up stone. Rip up sea. Rip gorse and Denge and rain and beetle and cinnabar moth and cuckoo and ragwort. Tear in half drainpipes and gutters and dark clouds and sand and mud and wind. The waves reflect the sun the sun dances on the waves around the waves. The waves and the sun are dancing together it is how they communicate with humans. We are lucky.
Other works include: Invisible Poems ZimZalla, WHO? The Literary Pocket Book, and Telegraphic Transcriptions Stranger Press / Dept Press.
He also makes poetry objects such as Pharmacopoetics, Remains, Breath, Rilke Translations, Homeopoetry, and History of the English Working Class.
More information can be found here: https://stephenemmerson.wordpress.com/
