Reuben Woolley: Six Poems from “Broken Stories” with a note by the author

black

she brings black flowers
black flowers
to black weddings

flowers
from black suns
she dances

black swans
on black rivers
singing

black
i want / black
sails on black seas

the outlying

looking out from layers
is not time
for counting the broken

 it's here all the tawdry

another pointed explosion
for all the relevant 
dead.we have no room
for breathing & talk
is no comfort at all

time shining

light

is a time away

unseen                       there is eyes

& all the twisted mix

                        impatient

i have my own name now

& i can speak you

                                    we go slow

not here

making shadows

the echo of sounds

                        silent

                        bright

through all the day i hide

my mad indifference

& bridge

a while away

are holes

in all systems

life is overrated she said

flowers

            i write

            i missed

your portrait

& all the years

            graying

every detail

hung a face

            & dried

where everything is

            still

insufficient.a candle

will not warm us now

the broth is cold

& the bone is hollow

sing

            flowers

they did & loud

her sleep continues

response

this last
cold
asking
            there are no heroes
behind cross
hairs
focused on distance
            are empty plates
for broken tables

she walks in black
& dust

comes
with all the silence
of tomorrow  

            knowing 
every move & when

is a tale for hurtling days

i've lived with me
all my life.it is 
not easy

            i go riding
on rivers.they’ll take me
quietful
in the slow beat
of a universe

an ocean a long breath
are answers sufficient

metawhatever & sleeping

i don't want

your infinities         self-

reflected        & old smears

                         the doubling

of alibis

glazed for auction

                         the bark

in my hands

i'm fingering for nothing

& finding it

                         raining

let's go            small

in the distance

bye bye

[NOTE.  Published earlier this year by 20/20 Vision Publishing in the U.K., of which he writes, relating to both the title & the concept: “For a story to be broken means that once upon a time it was whole. A story is never finished; one leads into another. However, in these dystopian times, this process has become more complex; the story teller meets interference. These narratives that used to exist, that helped to hold a culture together are being broken by certain people for their own ends (political and corporatist) or are being weakened in our hi-tech world (with or without our collaboration). We haven’t yet produced a strong enough narratology to take their place.

“We are the stories.

“Music is a strong influence on the work. The white spaces are an essential element and should be read. The void is not empty! However, the beats are not necessarily the regular beats of drum and bass but rather the breath beats of a free form jazz saxophonist, for example, which may vary in tempo. I like to think of the interplay between different beats: the earth beat, breath beat and the blood beat.

“Among the influences on the work are a wide range of British, American and European poets, writers such as James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, whose plays I consider to be among the greatest poetry of the 20th Century and musicians such as Captain Beefheart, Bob Dylan, Roy Harper, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Terry Riley.”]