The Chemical Marriage

SYNOPSIS

The Chemical Marriage is a creation myth.

BACKGROUND

The book documents the sheer vigour and often random nature of life and change.

It follows a number of characters (Creation, Evolution, Truth, Time, and Hunter, among others) on a journey. Some poems were added as ‘signposts’ to guide the reader through the narrative. These make little sense if taken out of context. Similarly, some included poems don’t make sense in a traditional way but, rather, attempt to capture a feeling.

The book employs a dark humour throughout.

Whilst not formally stated, the ‘chemical marriage’ alluded to in the title refers to water (H₂O). A fundamental necessity of life.

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SAMPLE VIDEOS

SAMPLE POEMS

Beginning

When all has come down from mountaintop

and spine planted, and organs sown,

and tongue nested

in undergrowth

and eyes scattered among thorn bushes

and waterworks and bladder

soft-landed on mud

and lung

rolled out onto grass to breath

fine night air

then, they will come and harvest the good parts

to make a being of whatever

which they will call Mirror in honour of Whatself.

And eyes will roll

in their spikey circumstance upwards towards heaven,

and tongues labour in fleshy prisons

to fashion words they cannot yet hear.

In due course, when blended into one,

it will praise anything because it can

and just in case.

And that will be the start of it.

Love

Love dripped from eyes first

onto nape of neck

stumbling down the stairs of spine

jangling keys, making promises,

seeping through the litmus

of sense and reservation

dropping both stone-dead in its wake,

out through tunnel of nerves, veins,

bleeding from fingers into a disbelieving hand

which fell, surrendered, into the fold

of another

swung together

as electricity swings through a tree

voltage splitting the trunk asunder.

Nature Will Not Play the Game

Hid by sunlight

I am only what green folk called me.

No mistletoe I

who fits day wrong side round.

No smell of twig or leaf adhere,

stink of standing stone, maypole glen.

I who climbed Jacob’s ladder

out of forest where wood grieves still

spark crushed in my ashen white hand.

I am the Pale Son

bloodless, borne by wind

swift as smoke, strong as boulder

in which they tried to cage me.

Glanced once among oak fellow and yew

yet no longer.

I sing on wire now

fastened to sparrow and fox who run

apace your children.

Skulk on bird-table, fallow field.

I am holly in the enchantment,

nursery rhyme in which you celebrate murder

but still rest careless.

And I, licking tops

of milk bottles as you sleep.

Slip of the Tongue

When God was splicing legs together

so speech could walk,

and melting lead down

so speech might have substance,

and polishing the planet on its horizon

so speech would have perspective,

a small bird, no larger than chance,

began singing the most beautiful delicate song

ever heard.

God stopped to listen.

In that moment speech set rigid

irrevocably, without rescue,

bone parched,

staggering,

insubstantial as dust.

God laughed at such folly

but cast the bird dumb.

Bird curled as a snake into the ground

laughing with no voice.