Poems by Steve Spence

AN ALLEGATION OF INTIMIDATION

We seem to spend our lives
searching for patterns but
one way or another we’re all
damaged and this remains

a scorched and arid place.
Are the fish listening? Why
does the great tit have such
a range of song? The official

line here is one of death
by misadventure but these
recordings are very weird
and we have a tension

between what is possible
and what is preferable.
“These are ghostly creatures
with rounded wings,” she said.

Why are we always going off at
tangents? It’s time to close the hatches.


ATTEMPTING TO TIE

This is how to cast with
panache. “It’s a fig tree,
a beautiful specimen,”
she said. Our brains are

exceptionally expensive
organs but an absence
of evidence may prove
significant and it’s the

mutations that increase
the diversity of the gene
pool. “I was a good singer
before my voice broke,”

he said. We make our way
slowly across the ridge in
order to reach the reservoir
where people are scared and

in hiding. “It’s a common gull,
not a herring gull,” she said.


SECURING THE SCENE

Just relax and let the
rivers flow. Here we
have tunnels, catacombs,
mathematical patterns

on the walls. “It’s
adapted well to our
environment, given its
nutritional requirements,”

she said. Liquid bird
song, glorious to the ear.
It looks like the interior
of a space ship, very

high-tech., long corridors
where up is down and
down is out. “I can’t
get rid of this sense of

anxiety,” she said. We need
to break these associations.


ABLE TO RECORD

It’s a metallic sound and
it’s very beautiful yet a
single bird has a repertoire
of between one and eight songs.

“I can’t even explain myself
to myself,” she said, “but these
recordings are starting to freak
me out.” The mechanism is that

of a shutter in an old-style
camera but as the film is more
than forty years old that’s hardly
surprising. Where are we going

with this? All we want is for
Seattle to be printed as settle,
a small reclining sofa way out
west. Either that or something

of a resolution. Talking of which
these prints are sharply defined.


A LONGER TENANCY

We embark, disembark
and embark again. “Our
interiors are colour-coded,”
she said. What then of

the words ‘in the interest
of the state?’ True Grit or
Heaven’s Gate? All these
animal heads, from comic

to sinister, at the flick of
a switch or the press of a
button. For all the male
prancing and posturing it’s

the female that’s in control.
Here we have a slow-growing
energy crop while the signal
crayfish remains a menace.

“That’s our entire defence,” she said.
Here are the facts as we find them.


AN EXIT SCHEME

We need to be on guard
against the chameleons yet
green and orange is a good
colour combination and things

are starting to happen. Are
you talking about a red-nosed
comedian? “Our barn owl is a
lover of old buildings,” he said.

Diversity stems not only from
cooperation but from exploitation.
“We are running out of food and
options and our coping mechanisms

are in disarray.” An exodus has
just begun. Are we repeating the
process? At the fairground there
are mirror distortions and oblique

camera angles. At the steel plant
there are moments of eerie stillness.