{"id":978,"date":"2007-03-12T20:46:39","date_gmt":"2007-03-12T20:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=978"},"modified":"2007-03-12T20:46:39","modified_gmt":"2007-03-12T20:46:39","slug":"one-trilogy-and-two-poems-from-ed-targett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/one-trilogy-and-two-poems-from-ed-targett\/","title":{"rendered":"One trilogy and two poems from Ed Targett"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed Targett has submitted three poems – Painting Away<\/span>, Crying<\/span> and City Songs<\/span>, which is effectively a trilogy – the product of his 'pixels, sweat and tears', enjoy…<\/span>


City Songs<\/span>
    <\/span>
Occasionally<\/span>
Some staccatto quick steps<\/span>
Some jitters<\/span>
And people passing<\/span>
In night mode:<\/span>
Hoods up, caps on<\/span>
Arms swinging<\/span>
Or crossed.<\/span>
Occasionally some<\/span>
Back alleys,<\/span>
Rectangular shapes<\/span>
Pipes and steam,<\/span>
Restaurant workers smoking break time<\/span>
Cigarettes<\/span>
In the dim.<\/span>
Yellow street lamps<\/span>
Bulbous<\/span>
Hang suspended<\/span>
From private frames<\/span>
In a private delight,<\/span>
Glow<\/span>
Not far extending<\/span>
Not much including<\/span>
Like spoilt toddlers<\/span>
Clasping their toys<\/span>
As mother night calls us to bed.<\/span>
Occasionally clusters<\/span>
Of Kurds<\/span>
Turks<\/span>
Jamaicans<\/span>
Poles<\/span>
Outside bars with music trespassing<\/span>
Onto the street<\/span>
With glee<\/span>
Shaking heads and laughing<\/span>
In other tongues.<\/span>
Occasionally a road crossed<\/span>
Poste-haste<\/span>
White on the one hand and red on the other.<\/span>
    <\/span>
    The city swallows you<\/span>
    From the approach on the train<\/span>
    Inwards<\/span>
    Wreaths<\/span>
    Smoke haloes<\/span>
    Tighten as you struggle<\/span>
    Like modern military<\/span>
    Plastic handcuffs<\/span>
    Get a grip.<\/span>
    Don't fight it<\/span>
    Surrender<\/span>
    The rain spitting on old streets<\/span>
    New people<\/span>
    Balkan beggars; headscarves and<\/span>
    Ornamental babies<\/span>
    Sympathy<\/span>
    Is dead<\/span>
    I thought<\/span>
    As I averted my gaze<\/span>
    Clusters of machismo<\/span>
    Taunt<\/span>
    The girls in tight jeans<\/span>
    Fifteen or so<\/span>
    Somehow, faces look like they are<\/span>
    Chiseled from flint. <\/span>
    Urbanity, yet;<\/span>
    No one is urbane<\/span>
    Just jaded, polluted, tired, scared<\/span>
    A casual gesture<\/span>
    Of camaraderie<\/span>
    Offering the paper you've finished reading<\/span>
    To your neighbour<\/span>
    In the Tube<\/span>
    Elicits a startled jerk<\/span>
    Suspicious glance<\/span>
    And several seconds of scrutiny before they <\/span>
    Realise<\/span>
    There are no ulterior motives.<\/span>

The city has ulterior motives though<\/span>
The city wants you as its own<\/span>
Foreign bodies<\/span>
Objecting to the city system<\/span>
Planting grass on their designated <\/span>
Parking place<\/span>
Are swiftly repelled<\/span>
No more night-time jams<\/span>
On rooftops<\/span>
Tiles a-clattering<\/span>
Noise pollution,<\/span>
Acid rain.<\/span>
Even my poems<\/span>
Have been co-opted<\/span>
Urban laments<\/span>
Eulogies?<\/span>
The city hears me as singer<\/span>
Scribe<\/span>
Royal historian.<\/span>
Soviet air-brusher<\/span>
Of official photos<\/span>
The Metro tells tales of<\/span>
War and blood in distant lands;<\/span>
Perchance<\/span>
My neighbour's family<\/span>
Screaming at night<\/span>
With the caterwaul of stray cats<\/span>
Outside,<\/span>
Acknowledge this violence<\/span>
And are racked with grief.<\/span>
Perhaps<\/span>
The old man,<\/span>
Is not keeping up with the rent<\/span>
And the plastic guns of the kids on the block<\/span>
Echo, like a shadow song<\/span>
War<\/span>
We all fought<\/span>
Once.<\/span>


– – – – – – – – –<\/span>


Painting away<\/span>

I exist in isostasy<\/span>
Delineations of you, my monism,<\/span>
My molten crust.<\/span>
        I love in spite of you<\/span>
To spite you<\/span>
Bite and just fight through<\/span>
These delusions of dualism<\/span>
Things aren't what they seem<\/span>
She says.<\/span>
“The problem is with the seeming <\/span>
Not the whatting,” I retort;<\/span>
Life is endless and art is<\/span>
damn short.<\/span>
Who wants frames<\/span>
Eyes are frames<\/span>
Blue and brown of canvas daubing<\/span>
A world of colour and cubes<\/span>
Angles, angels – <\/span>
“Modern pretence, give me naked women and cherubs”<\/span>
she says with palpable glee.<\/span>
Pastoral stultification? Not for my time:<\/span>
        Naked or nude or nubile or neither:<\/span>
Cloaked in royal purple, Praetorian guard!<\/span>
My skin.<\/span>
There's no debate.<\/span>


– – – – – – – – –<\/span>


Crying<\/span>

It's like a trick:<\/span>
Spatters of steel<\/span>
In solemn<\/span>
Skin cutting flashes of stainless<\/span>
Heal with herbs such<\/span>
Heroically hewn <\/span>
Flesh wounds in memory<\/span>
Abound.<\/span>
        Here with all the<\/span>
Wherewithal withers not in<\/span>
Autumnal tints of glamour<\/span>
Perpetrated with all <\/span>
Wishful clamour of<\/span>
Leaves a-fallin and <\/span>
Now: A crash of<\/span>
Timber; tremulous and <\/span>
Juddering such death throes<\/span>
As betake an old soul like<\/span>
Breath caught on the<\/span>
Intake after,<\/span>
Outbursts of<\/span>
Such passion you<\/span>
Shake like <\/span>
A trick;<\/span>
Spatters of collusion<\/span>
In saline flashes of<\/span>
Stainless hewn<\/span>
Memories abound.<\/span>
<\/span>

\u2022 Ed Targett is reading Politics and Religions at the<\/span> London School of Oriental & African Studies.<\/span> He is published in torn fragments across small media.<\/span> He is 24 and married with a small, smiley, son.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Targett has submitted three poems – Painting Away, Crying and City Songs, which is effectively a trilogy – the product of his 'pixels, sweat and tears', enjoy…City Songs    OccasionallySome staccatto quick stepsSome jittersAnd people passingIn night mode:Hoods up, caps onArms swingingOr crossed.Occasionally someBack alleys,Rectangular shapesPipes and steam,Restaurant workers smoking break timeCigarettesIn the dim.Yellow street […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}