Mark Goodwin
St Ream Through Campus, A Myth
a Luffobrough, an Engedgeland, a 2012
@ A back of A Gas
Research Centre
in a Holywell Woods
(on a univers(e)
it(t)y town’s shade-tinged
rim of flickering histories)
a stream’s
wet thesis (will)
be
(gin)gan/gins
•
at a stream’s rising
a naked shape gives
-&-takes steps (is
(in a flash
-glimpse (in
a gap
between branches (seen
by an uplooking laid
low creaturely
eye))) a
dark letter X against sky)
•
a shape startled
a shape shifted
from undergrowth so
trembling fracture(’)s
a shape’s spell
at a stream’s
westerly beginnings
a shape’s dirt-smudge-steps
enter a ropey
trail see-through & murky
wet’s twine of stained cords all
wriggling liquid chaos
bare feet hurt
in a stream’s flow
feet quiver out wet steps
heading away from west to
follow a stream’s pass
age to gain
an entry easterly
to pass through
a gap in ground
on a rimland campus’s westerly edge
a shape’s steps slosh
as a stream’s clear flesh is
strolled through
a brick is a toad’s fossil instinct
a brick’s emotion is of
course oblong a toe slips
soft fumes of ditch-rot
now death-stench
harsh & sharp
as hot light
in nostrils
yet dark
as bog-sludge
a twinge of ancestry
flicks a shape’s left
Achilles’ tendon
chiffons polythenes
& ripped silks of water wrap
a shapely syllable’s walking
the passiveness of scum
holds other worlds
a culvert swallows a whole
town’s molten silvery windows
gleaming ropes writhe
all that’s
is-seen
smooth slick
of slime over pebbles
a shape’s soles press
into an un
seen (sea) bed
jagged broken brick
clots of silt &
dissolved footnotes like
smoke blown through water
a shape’s fingers graze
a blackbird’s drenched dead frame
splayed in the stream
feathers like ink-jelly
needling pricks of fractured bone
plasticky quills of
course discourse
gets stretched
as twiggy sentences dangle strands
of intellectualised algae caught from
floodwaters’ caress
(through a wobbling lens
of a stream’s rippling skin
a shape’s shape
blurs to a
fuzzy X seen
by a low-lying
fish)
weed is a stream’s muscles
rubbing on a streambed’s bones
a drain-grille an organ of un
known grief
anxious at a grille’s mouth
weeds’ wavering green flags of
love(s)
thee willow once
was a novel exp
loded its leaves
its pages its trail
ing twigs a failed
structure but now
a kingfisher’s bright
blue myth told for
ever in a millionth
of this second
wet earth’s clean-dirt perfume
a shape’s toes press through
mud’s gritty ooze clear
water’s metal tang entwined
with faint
grilled beef burger
students eating
on grass in
sunshine knowledge
a moveable feast’s napkins
a young weeping
willow lets
tendrils scrape wet reflections
a shape
dissolves its letter X steps
through complete & gone
as sleep(’s)
Copyright © Mark Goodwin 2018
Mark Goodwin speaks and writes in various ways. He has published five full-length poetry collections and six chapbooks with various English poetry houses, including Longbarrow Press and Shearsman Books. His latest chapbook is All Space Away and In (Shearsman 2017). His next full-length (which includes fiction) – Rock as Gloss – is due from Longbarrow in November. Mark lives with Nikki on a boat in Leicestershire, and is a balancer, walker, climber, and stroller ... This is his fourth appearance in Molly Bloom.
