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"A l'heure de l'observatoire, les Amoreux" 1932 - 1934

Exhumation          And still the word hung in mid air           Aegus

 

“A l’heure de l’observatoire, les Amoreux” 1932 - 1934

 

He woke, the red circle still impressed

on his temple, put the gun away,

took out a brush

and for an hour

and at the same hour, every day

for two years Man Ray painted

over and

over again

the memory of Lee’s lips;

layers of paint

like aragonite

coating a piece of grit,

until at last

when he looked on the lovers,

he could see

it was finished.

 

 

Derek Adams

from unconcerned but not indifferent - the life of Man Ray,

2006, Ninth Arrondissement Press, ISBN 978-0-9553521-1-9;

first published in Magma, 2004

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Exhumation

 

Normally it is the one dark place in a well-lit town

where only ghosts and cats roam, but tonight

among the quiet stone rows there is a digger

and a tent lit up like a big top,

police at the gates and cameramen outside.

Later when your black sheeted package

has been delivered to the pathologist,

when you’ve been winkled from your box,

placed on the stainless steel table

and he takes a surgical blade

in his rubber gloved hand

cuts from both shoulders to sternum

then down to the pubic bone,

peels back the skin to reveal the ribcage,

will he call the photographer over

“I think we’d better have a picture of this”

his eyebrows raised between mask and cap,

as he stares at the space behind the breastbone

at that cold black cavity that should contain a heart.

 

 

Derek Adams

published in anthology, Buzz, 2008, Templar;

first published in Acumen, 51, 2005

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And still the word hung in mid air

 

And still the word hung in mid air,           

chill net curtain blown between us

emotional crowbar wrought from where

and if and how and was and as.          

And flew the wind in face of reason

as dark the time grew with the season

now near is end, speak truth is treason.

 

And still the word hung in mid air,

looked on and laughed as

shallowness drowned deep despair,   

doubting ivy slipped crack to crack

grew here to then and then to back.

Consequences slipstreamed actions

released the howl of chained reaction.

 

And still the word hung in mid air,   

stared eye to eye

close as fist, far from care

once danced in time, owed to joy

now out of space, in the void

applied the brakes, supplied the friction

as into every once and which way

flew the inevitable contradiction.

 

 

Derek Adams

from Everyday Objects, Chance Remarks, 2005,

Littoral Press, ISBN 09541844-7-5;

first published in Poetry Nottingham, 44, 1994;

published in Dream People, June 2002;

3rd Prize Winner, Lake Aske Memorial Award, 1994

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Aegus

 

How many cubits

does the black sail cloth measure?

 

There, near the horizon

it is as small as a pupil

constricted against the sunlight.

 

Here, squared by my heartbeat

it is as large as the dark cliff

that tumbles past my eyes.

 

 

Derek Adams

from Postcards to Olympus, 2004,

Poetry Monthly Press, ISBN 1-905126-05-0;

first published in Obsessed With Pipework, 27, 2004

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