Jacket 33 - July 2007 - Jeffrey Side: Extracts from «Carrier of the Seed»

This piece is about 8 printed pages long.
It is copyright © Jeffrey Side and Jacket magazine 2007.

You made Pandora visit me
from her disruptions across
the sea her mane was
stretched like Cyprus flow and
her mind was as smooth as
causation at a time I had
reached my most content you
pointed her up and to me you
sent like when I passed
quickly through the sheep
pool clustered together there
at the edge of a clearing the
struggle for mating territory
accident and necessity but at
base level this just comes
down to quality asset concepts
recommended for global
incremental alignment
nonetheless you were loved
attracted by cries of the
tormented with the stick
which she uses for leather no
less than poverty expressive of
self doubt held in a head-lock
laughing whose mother
emerges as I sometimes do
myself known for contending
scandal in the libraries
exposed on sale insist we
tolerate anthropology in the
island fashion much of our
lives women and children with
equal truth that burns produce
syndrome which accelerates
metabolism and the midnight
blue of zenith impersonal and
personal made clear by the
notices and the poster
exploitative and acute against
various defences we might
keep the altitude in view by
the stream near Vancouver…

I wanted to put things right
down to the letter while he
was just a child and she called
him to her bedside and said
I’m dying I’m poorer than
your parents and I’ve nothing
much to leave sometimes I
think we have no choice I
wanted to be real not plastic as
once I loved a bonny lass safe
from all the sleet that had
accumulated on frigid
England’s sterile streets while
somewhere in the light an
artist drew you near trees that
will never start and
cooperation was not
forthcoming so that it shall not
be confused with itself come
on baby do your stuff you
know how to serve me
suppose you screeve or go
cheap Jack sometimes it takes
luck even to think straight
they would hold you in the
darkness and kiss you in the
light they would listen to your
story until your stress was
slight then they departed in
the evening when the sun was
turning night and her pulse did
beat for thee I’m lost and I
don’t know why sarakawi you
loved me really even though
you chased after your lover
but could not catch him I
should’ve been somewhere by
now I’ll see you back on deck…

no reason for your mind to
leave you the clarity of the
native hands are deep within
your bed and the mournful
words that are uttered can
never be unsaid and the ones
who were within you are now
without toiling in different
cities to keep your fortress
stone to break now that
kingdoms come and kingdoms
go and your soul in Gertrude’s
precious chamber your love
they tried and for the world
outside women in the parlour
have remembered and in the
scattered graveyard the stolen
church bell tolls you through
the mazes that surround you to
America in this life and in the
next from your computer they
hope you travelled to claim
your freedom back cattle on a
fading then you came home
with a letter written to
shattered hearts your Arctic
beams shone down on the
eyes who would not leave a
minstrel revealing the pure
sound of the music and the
blood that must sustain you
pilgrims suspended between
life and death and the still cold
trails of autumn dawn were
shown to you caught between
two vast shores where the
wind had caught your breath
you were raised above and all
that did remain was taken
from you used to watch the
dancing girls while they were
writhing in their trance with
their chartered bodies in
jeopardy and all the men who
surrounded you had waited
for their chance they were
ghostly then but now they do
not haunt you but those days
are long behind weary
confession but you still retain
your grace and all of this
territory where all the maidens
in the valleys are trapped
within their sleep…

soldiers cry out in their cages
and you feel the padded paws
of squirrels all about you I
could never work it out myself
as I went out one morning in
the college woods those child
bearing hips your husband
died in the mountains and I’ve
got money in my jeans there’s
nothing that I can do with my
heart still entwined I’m
rootless and my swan has
gone I don’t want to wish
anything on anyone pull my
heart out with your love I sunk
a well and answered to my
lust so great is his mercy like
a father who pitieth his
children for you did not
receive the spirit of slavery
and your sons and daughters
shall prophesy silver and gold
have I none send me on my
way so that I can go back to
my homeland they were a
people strong and numerous
nothing of theirs was missing
I am about to go the way of all
the earth if only my anguish
could be weighed return to
him you who have so greatly
revolted…

I was abandoned with
reclaims of the high nature
and there are no accidents
except her anatomy bred forth
organism like that time she
stood me up her dominant
motherhood wave-matron
phallic surplus condition of
autonomy closing her flesh
envelope over her minoan
female tower made me curious
as I crept towards moment
maximum intensity horizontal
chain-like arranged whereby
conversation became pointless
camouflage consumption for
the sailors was her call so
don’t make me go into debt
and don’t make me play this
way now thou hast sorted out
this stuff in your head he’s
just trying to get back cable
symmetry forgetting
reproduction and transference
blows unquestioned
opaqueness through conflation
or colludes with the refusal of
insert and service while
situation process repetitive
delaying my love has gone
escalator she’s calling the
river over illusion at my core
while on high heaven’s
vengeance what you send out
it comes back more get out of
her my people the lady from
Baltimore like we did for the
eight rivals loose at feet where
they lay in the vale water shot
the last to go down…

I hear a great voice
shell-encased turtledove
similar to walpurgisnacht and
Tripoli and like them I’m
gonna get home tonight where
she met me her singularity
showing itself in the
way she descended mirrored
accordingly to come hither
consistently but it isn’t also an
illness there’s a chemical
element that takes place at a
certain point though nothing’s
been proven yet come off it
you have a stable mind also
you have a great level ness
about you so hang on this is
one of the voices calling
though you were forced to
closely release faculty with
those who will be familiar
among the admired melting
into nature resented and
constructions against the
glutted apple gaze and those
drained myths of religious
faith where mannoisms were
writing contorted letters that
became contempt producing
flood disorganizing processes
and parallels time’s interior
form of art converging on
kangaroo only to implement
songbirds mourning dogs
while laconic restraint passes
into opacity presentiment but I
believe it to be the obsession
with perception which forms a
sediment in the contrast dark
in pomegranate bruising born
before time jumped them for
nothing in Venice apart from
autumn at gas no more
causation blockage near
Geneva night come I will fold
you in vinegar lest some time
comes between us but I’ve
used up all my sanctions and
I’ve used up all my speed…

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Jeffrey Side: Extracts from Carrier of the Seed