WordSalad: The Poetry of Luke Prater

duplicity, cheap
as chips; integrity, free -
given space to stir

seething spirals rank
ink misunderstandings arc
beneath cybersink

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Where did you go to Melanie Brown?
Did you ever return?
Did your hands get burned?
Nice to know you, Melanie Brown
nice to show you round.

Took your wanting wan nightgown
pills, and rock CDs
Ridgie, Ruth and me
friends you made that term in town
friends, they let you down?

Left on sullied mid-heeled ground
your looks, and college books.
Travestied; too many cooks.
That stinging, scuppered blue-eyed frown
shakysmileme down.

Do they still try it on, come round
gangle lank-haired boys
surreptitious ploys
to steal that sorry blue-eyed frown,
like they did that term in town?

Not a place of great renown -
fast-dance saloon -
cried, like Syd, for the moon
we tried not to let you drown
in pools of Melanie Brown.

Were you flipped like half-a-crown
hung up on highs and whys
fed up being fed mud pies?
Was there any joy that term in town
before you went on down?

Where did you go to Melanie Brown?
Did you ever return?
Did your tongue get burned?
Nice to know you, Melanie Brown
nice to show you round.

✩

A Modern Ballad about a girl I knew in my first term/semester at University (Autumn/Winter 1998). Written in 2004, originally blogged 2010, reposting as it’s had a thorough overhaul for meter and phrasing.

Also celebrating 100,000 visitors to my blog (unique visitors count that resets every 24 hrs). Seems like just the other day I decided to sully a pristine WordPress page with my iambic innards. Hard to believe it was in fact April 2010. Thank you all for the support… hugely appreciated.

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An unseasonal departure,
body bending
to unreasonable pressure;

mourning over,
the generous remainder
of a resurgent Summer day -
pushing serendipity into October -
lay devoted to celebrating
her life with the living.

No black was worn.

Cloudless, shroudless
she moved, wake-walked
through spiralling song and sway.

~ Go gentle into that good night, Tira, with love ~

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His sleep was stirred before the burgeoning of dawning sun.
Regularly, years, despite vicissitudes, in bunk-bed
he wouldn’t stay – before the barrack’s early morning run
coughing, smoking, first of many. Found it cleared a tired head.

This gentle Northern lad defied the constant warning signs,
hacking at him, packets daily, deaf to implication.
Was not his place to question why, but wary of field-mines;

solace lay in morning’s dawning peace, a mute elation
accompanied by nicotine and tar, inclined, supine.
Old and well-thumbed copy of The Prophet travelled with him;

confronted by mass-rape and genocide, sick civil war,
continents dark seas away, with NATO forces keeping.

The inhumanity he witnessed slunk into his core -
blackened lungs gave up to cancer; Prophet never left him.

(Stress Matrix Sonnet No. 2)

☆

Second in my own sonnet form, Stress Matrix Sonnet (also known as Stress Checkerboard Sonnet). Details on it can be found beneath the first, Forks and Spades. This piece is another version of my previous post, The Soldier and the Prophet (which is in free verse ballad format).

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His sleep was stirred before the
burgeoning of dawning sun.
Year upon year he rose

from a rude martial bed before
the barrack’s early morning run:
good cough, good smoke; first of many.

This gentle Northern lad defied
the constant warning signs
that hacked at him in packets daily.

Never questioning, but wary
of Sergeant’s friendly-fire, and
a field of land-mines.

Solace lay in early morning’s
dawning peace, a mute elation wed with
nicotine and tar. Supine he stayed.

An old, well-thumbed copy of
The Prophet travelled with him;
Gibran’s words and Lady Nicotine

were sanity amid the genocide,
civil war, refugee camps;
women and child rape-victims

inseminated with hate and HIV,
continents dark seas away
with a dour NATO regiment.

Sitting with ineffable inhumanity, a
packet of fags, and an old,
well-thumbed copy of The Prophet,

the savagery skulked and crept
into his skull beneath the
standard-issue helmet. On return

from service, he began to pen all
that he saw: simple, truthful,
botched backalley-abortion raw.

Nightmares of the Congo’s bloody
internecine ruin recurred, compelling
him like some demonic Muse.

Lady Nicotine his love-hate Queen,
calming, clearing,
reassuring.

Blackened lungs surrendered;
asphyxiated bit by bit, no cards, flowers
or relations sat by that rude, medical bed.

Just an old, well-thumbed copy of The Prophet.

☆

A sonneted version of this piece, Supine, can be found here

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James Joyce (1882-1941)

If I could write with the wit of Fry or Wilde, the word-
use of Thomas or Joyce, the intrigue of Pinter, the
invention and descriptive ability of Tolkien, the political
conviction of Marley, the imagination of Carroll or Lewis;

with the humour of Douglas Adams, Armando Ianucci,
or Dr Seuss, the linguistic innovation of Shakespeare,
the cadence of Longfellow, the narrative thrust of
Twain, the grit of Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, or Bukowski;

with the beauty of Cohen, the exhilaration of Kerouac,
the wisdom of Rumi or Gibran, the sweet tragedy of Lee
or Steinbeck, the epic grandiose of Homer, yet with my
own voice, then – and which is more – I’ll be a man, my son!

(Kipling ain’t too bad neither)

Roger Waters (Pink Floyd Lyricist, Bassist & Vocalist 1943- )

Armando Ianucci (Scottish-Italian Comedy Writer/Producer 1963- )

Bob Dylan (1941- )

Harold Pinter (British Playwright, 1930-2008)

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There’s something sad about Alice
she sits there sipping her tea
half-gone the cup
half-gone the eyes
listens to the song of the sea
rocks with a bend of her knee, on the
porch of her weatherboard palace.

There’s something sad about Alice
her gaze runs away to the trees
pale soft the skin
pale green the eyes
lashes that long to fly free
won’t you flutter them just once at me?
Sweet indifference is what becomes Alice.

There’s something sad about Alice
slips to her caravan to sleep
cold dark the night
cold dark the bed
listens to the song of the sea
rocks with a bend of her knee, and
collects her tears in a chalice.

There’s something sad about Alice
leaving today for the city
large white the van
large white the man
who takes her away to fly free
away from the song of the sea
away from her weatherboard palace.

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