Bring on the Crémant

Cucumber Mosaic Virus Rampages Through My Field

John Patch



John Patch, Rougemont House, Exeter, 1788

Engraving: Ezekiel Abraham Ezekiel, after John Opie

 

Cementing your credentials with your conversational charm
Applying the splanchnic practice: Anatomized post-mortem harm

John Patch
A double-hose from an oxygen chamber,
the plugged-up nose of a posthumous maimer
John Patch

Prostrate with the vapours, a scrap of humanity
displayed on a table with a scented handkerchief
Lex Talionis: Punishment by degree,
the code of retaliation corresponding to the injury

John Patch
A double-hose from an oxygen chamber,
adopting the pose of a Cosmic Ranger
John Patch
Patching me into your Pittsburgh Modular,
synthesized riffs all squibbly and globular

The room in which you were born
looks into the ditch of Rougemont Castle
You converted that foul ravine
into the delightful spot it now is

John Patch
Big white buns either side of your brain-pan,
your breathing machine makes you look like a spaceman
John Patch
Patching me up like a human duvet,
hands all covered in Oil of Ulay
John Patch

---

sources:

‘Dissecting the Criminal Corpse’ by Elizabeth T. Hurran

’Space Ranger’ by Isaac Asimov

‘These Old Shades’ by Georgette Heyer

‘The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital’  by J. Delpratt Harris M.D.

from Bring on the Crémant

Bridge Street Café



Basic Food Hygiene awards
The Haywain is fading by the menu boards
A scruffy brown terrier tied
to the steering wheel of a red Motability vehicle outside

The apparatus has lifted us into the Bridge Street Café

Woven mats of straw
Real and imaginary lines criss-cross the floor
An alcove reveals the scrolls of a Buddhist priest
A simple meal of seasonal foods followed by sweets

The paradigms have shifted at the Bridge Street Café

Spiky organic structures are bruised with a stone hammer
held in the wrinkled hands of a Kalahari nomad
Water becomes vapour and the mixtures passes
into our systems

The catechins take effect
Inhibited congealing of the blood platelet
Acerbic astringency
Diminished lipoproteins of low density

Withered by hot air on the continuous conveyer
The leaves that have been sifted for the Bridge Street Café
See our bibs, each with a trough, a narrow channel to prevent run-off
As our consciousnesses drift inside the Bridge Street Café

Thomas Glass

Portrait of Thomas Glass by John Opie, in the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (altered). Attribution: Wellcome Collection

---

sources:

'Thomas Glass: Physician of Georgian Exeter' by Alick Cameron MD DHMSA

'The Impossible Zoo' by Leo Ruickbie

‘The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital’  by J. Delpratt Harris M.D.

'Slither' by John Halkin 

from The Floating Republic and the London Clay

The Cubhood Of Wahb



 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Down towards the Meteetsee, the bearcub carries on
There's no food on the Graybull, the berries are almost gone
For the man who hunted his family, the price of peace is war
The Bobcat, the Range-Cow, the Coyote, Wahb despises them all

Living is ugly and hard
The grizzly cubhood of Wahb

He finds the little granaries where the squirrels hoard their nuts
for Winter in great quantities, for Wahb it is good luck
He reaches out towards them then hears a sudden clank
One of his paws is caught in the steel of a beaver trap

Wriggling up through the barbs
The grizzly cubhood of Wahb

---

source: 
 
'The Biography of a Grizzly' by Ernest Thompson Seton

from The Floating Republic and the London Clay

Prebendary Barnes

Prebendary Barnes, Prebendary Barnes
I long to sing a psalm, see a lectern, hear a sermon
Prebendary Barnes, Prebendary Barnes
Hold me in your arms at the hecatomb of Omdurman
 
As I face the enemy
I think of Heavitree
My friend the Prebendary
Prebendary Barnes

---

source: 
 
'The End of General Gordon' (from 'Eminent Victorians') by Lytton Strachey.

photo: St Michael & All Angels Church, Heavitree, Exeter - attributed to Derek Harper.

The Melodic Analyser of the University of Toronto

 
Four filter channels from seventy to five hundred hertz
Rejecting the second harmonic and isolating the first
The intonation curve is traced on the screen as the speaker speaks
from a tape of a conversation on a busy Parisian street

Vous nous avez tous vus dans la rue?

A perfect reflection of the fundamental frequency
To the elements of melodic perception, reacting accurately

Phonemes explode from parted lips, aperiodic
Vibrating chords, the rise and fall of speech, melodic
Overlapping vocal overtones above the din
The fundamental underneath when we speak and when we sing

Vous nous avez tous vus dans la rue?

A perfect reflection of the fundamental frequency
To the elements of melodic perception, reacting accurately

The Melodic Analyser of the University of Toronto

---

sources: 
 
'Intonation' - essays edited by Dwight Bolinger, mainly 'Machines and Measurements' by Pierre R. Leon and Philippe Martin
 
from The Floating Republic and the London Clay

The Lyrical Schopenhauer



 
---
 
sources:

Jewish Virtual Library (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

'The Glove that Transmits Touch over the Internet' by Lesley Evans Ogden (www.bbc.com)

'Ein Zögling des Jahres' by Heironymous Lorm

from The Floating Republic and the London Clay

The Floating Republic


 
They go in great numbers from their ships to Sheerness
in all the pomp of parade.
Long have they laboured to find themselves men.
Have they not a right to complain?

The Floating Republic
Ho-howa-hey-howa-hey-ho-har
Ho-howa-hey-ho-har

From the masts of their barges red flags are flying
as they take to the ramparts and the streets.
Their heads are embellished with blue paper saying:
"Success to the Delegates of the Fleet."

The Floating Republic
Ho-howa-hey-howa-hey-ho-har
Ho-howa-hey-ho-har

Contagions that can't be cured on board
The faith of the nation must be restored

Far from the thought of subverting their sovereign
and his government's beloved country,
their endeavours depend on the laws of humanity,
honour and national safety.

The Floating Republic
Ho-howa-hey-howa-hey-ho-har
Ho-howa-hey-ho-har

---

source: 
 
'The Floating Republic: An Account of the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797' by G.E. Mainwaring
 
from The Floating Republic and the London Clay

Chaise à Porteurs


 Carried across the alps on my Chaise à Porteurs
A seat of matted bark and rope with a pole either side of me
Carried across the alps on my Chaise à Porteurs
upon the shoulders of several men into Italy

Carried across the alps on my Chaise à Porteurs
Epic scenes to awe a hardened sceptic into belief
Carried across the alps on my Chaise à Porteurs
Terror mixed with pleasure, the full effect of sublimity

Be aware, learned men,
of what Samuel Johnson says
Turn all care out of your head
as soon as you mount the chaise

Carried across the alps on my Chaise à Porteurs
Indifference to life the source of my intrepidity
Carried across the alps on my Chaise à Porteurs
Neither hurt nor frightened by The Vast Profundity

---

source: 
 
'Ladies of the Grand Tour' by Brian Dolan
 
from The Floating Republic and the London Clay

Springtime Spectacles


Just proportion of energy
shared by two halves of a globe
The sun above the equatorial wheel

Perceived three-dimensional scene
Contrasting red-blue colour code
Stereoscopic vision revealed

Images integrated,
printed and laminated
Ingenious optical trick
two hundred microns thick

You have resumed your evening classes
halfway through the second term
The walk has loosened up your tendons

You must use the 3D glasses
There is much still for you to learn
Impressive are the rhododendrons

Azaleas are so alien,
shrubby with five stamens
Azimuth of everything
Anaglyph in the spring

I'll bind you in the minuteness of the microns

Gently stretching days
The wasps begin to graze

Holes in a honeycomb
The mouth of a cyclostome

Supercell thunderstorm
The bison are about to swarm

The Habitats Directive



Who's that striding through the gorse,
sent from the city, here to enforce
a series of measures required to maintain
species in danger in their natural range?

He sits cross-legged on the loam,
focusing his attention upon your home
He writes a report about the life that you have been leading
You deliberately disturb specimens during the period of breeding

Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the
conservation of natural habitats and of wild flora and fauna

The Habitats Directive

As habitats continue to deteriorate,
enforce the directive before it's too late

As habitats continue to deteriorate,
enforce the directive before it's too late

---

source: 
 
The Habitats Directive Articles 1 and 12.

featuring:

Matthew Shepherd - keyboard
Michael Parker - guitar
Pete Westaway - synthesizer

Cold Extremities



Chowing down on a Bakewell tart,
ruminating in the gloom
Illuminated in the middle of June
by a three bar electric heater

Just a crust or is it art?
It looks like a crescent moon
I hum a pleasantly inoffensive tune
and put the key-card in the meter

Now there's nothing left but a tin
Cold extremities
are creeping over my skin
Cold extremities
on the fringes of the solar system
Cold Extremities

on the surface of my skin

---

featuring: Michael Parker - lead guitar

Sensitive Guy



Far away in his mansion by the coast there's a sensitive guy
Wandering the cliff-tops like a ghost, such a sensitive guy
Yeah you'd better treat him with kid gloves, hey, sensitive guy
Do you think you're ready for the love of a sensitive guy?

He's not gonna condescend or criticise
Oo, such a sensitive guy
He's not gonna give you incomplete advice
Oo, such a sensitive guy
He's not gonna say one thing and then do otherwise
Oo, such a sensitive guy
He's not gonna cause your vessel to capsize
Oo, such a sensitive guy

He stoops and puts his ear to the ground, get the sensitive guy
Soaking up the movements and the sounds like a sensitive guy
Powerful sedatives fail to suppress the itching of the sensitive guy
Thanks to a chronic and incurable dermal condition he's a sensitive guy

He's not gonna make snide remarks about your size
Oo, such a sensitive guy
He's not gonna coerce you into severing your social ties
Oo, such a sensitive guy
He's not gonna force himself upon you with eyes
Oo, such a sensitive guy
He's not gonna fill your room with tsetse flies
Oo, such a sensitive guy

---

featuring: Matthew Shepherd - keyboard

Dan Wray



By Rogers Dry Lakebed in the Mojave
at the flight test centre at Edwards Air Force Base
a chemist works on a space shuttle cooling system
He's trying to remove the oil from
anhydrous ammonia

Fingers crossed it seems to be working

But hang on...

An odourless mixture slowly forms before him
Its consistency is that of pre-ejaculate
As a joke he gives a co-worker a pint of it
When his colleague asks for a refill
he knows he has a product

Dan Wray - accidental inventor
of the transparent slippery substance
marketed as Astroglide
A firework display - the biggest in the county
Meet the man behind the festivities
on the 4th of July

Hardened crusts of discharged matter
Ceilings above no longer molten streams
Now empty gutters where there once was magma
The barren cavities of Interstate 15

The sun falls upon him through the crack
of a skylight

"Teachers cannot truly transfer wisdom
or knowledge to students but must
interest and excite students regarding
new ways to see and describe the world
in which we live"

- the educational philosophy of

Dan Wray - accidental inventor
of the transparent slippery substance
marketed as Astroglide
A firework display - the biggest in the county
Meet the man behind the festivities
on the 4th of July

He returns to the Mojave
to explore the lava tubes
He wonders if we'll one day
live inside them
when we find them
on the moon

---

featuring: Michael Parker - lead guitar