Totes Meer
after Paul Nash.
In the time it would take for the light from the moon
to evaporate the oceans we could begin to
pile up an island with the collected dreck of wars. Downed
planes, tanks like evacuated beetles and other
chewed vehicles would provide rigor mortis foundations.
The island would be looking as if it was badly
tin foiled. Then we could skim the globe, lifting bits up
like finger nails – acned sabres, tobacco
cannons and mistakable buttons. But after the obvious
litter how do we then reclaim all the flint
axe-heads for some placement? Do we include found pots
and pans once loved by men more than
pikes and javelins? And what of the articles of the innocent –
was the trunk of sleeping schoolbooks never
opened after a certain siren? Were the child’s ditched
bike and the winded radio still tuned
to a mother’s favourite station forgotten beyond a rupture?
The Crowd
after Wyndham Lewis.
The newest cities seem to elaborate when they’re not.
Pillars redouble like guttering until they too need to be
guttered. The people move like a landslide in a beehive,
scrambled hexagons crashing in currents. A geometric
violence becomes them as if a motherboard has sneezed.
Ennui
after Walter Richard Sickert.
With sunglasses on the varnished sky
always looks hung over. Unmilked clouds
appear wattled and clumsy, each like an
old man trying so hard not to spill a glass
of water with his pneumonic hand that,
you guessed it. In some areas of the world,
parts of char grilled India, carbuncular coal
pits in Alaska, this drawn vision is the norm.
Negativity and scar tissue make corners
noticeable for the wrong reasons like when
you’ve read the list of ingredients on your
favourite food. Yin is chained to Yang,
an occidental logic that lost favour about
when Kristiania became Oslo. Beforehand
whole cities were preserved in an amber
light. Everything was steeped in a brown
attitude. Men’s suits appeared to be made
out of bark; whiskey was used as moisturizer;
and tobacco leaves were twined into scarves.
Flea coloured paint was the fashion and
sunglasses were a crackpot commodity.
Bio: James Nixon is a writer, poet and editor from South London. He is currently studying Creative Writing at postgraduate level at Royal Holloway, University of London. His poetry and criticism has been published variously, and he is the editor of the poetry platform Fry Your Friends. James is passionate about the arts – his heroes include Charles Bernstein, Junior Kimbrough and Terrence Malick.
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