Off the Menu

Anthropocene. Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

by

Anthropocene

 

get on with life in whatever hapless fate befalls us
in this evanescent scenario of existence
though our whatever stance may be absurd
nevertheless grasp with final strength at the word 

sign of life in what's been left as the millennium tilts
beyond the controle we can circumstantiate
there are those who believe we can be uploaded into  

a cloud  eternal information ether & the planet will slip 
away as we all become timeless satellites in infinite space
so let the planet be consumed by the flames of hell
we're gonna be transported into a silicon heaven

even if we happen to be no more than a cartoon simulation
the cosmic joke      to escape extinction 	the last gnostic 
hope of salvation from the failed demi urge creation meanwhile 

we have surveillance capitalism 	the greed of corporations 
as super powers wage wars of economy	 as if should
this anthropocentric creature quit the planet	   life won't go on

but it will	& it won't be uploaded in a cloud	but simply
create new cultural non human  life forms of communication
where hopefully animal life won't be bred for daily slaughter
to feed our rapacious stomachs in the name of the economy

 
 

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Yahun. Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

by


 

all these years on
& i've given up on reflections
such as the origins of human madness
the limits of what we are beyond our controle
& suddenly	as often happens nowadays
i flashback to a dangerous rushing stream
tumbling & cold	i remember
the water is green	white		deep

a slither of a stripped tree trunk straddles
the sheer sided banks		
a few strides & a skip
to cross which all in the bleak grey stone village
must	old or young	strong  weak or sick
to enter onto its sparse barren ground

i am alone	i see no one
even the tree spar looks slippery	shiny
bent with an undersway to the tug of the flow
a fatal slip & i'm gone	i could go on
but i cross	
a few strides & a skip
i come to the first stone dwelling place
the ground is hard  & arid		i pass the front dyke space
to enter without a door 
the burnt earthen floor room in its dim half light	
                                        i don't remember how

there's what looks like a built up large sink
made of stone & shingle & in it half submerged
in clear cold water	small white turnips

it's his only fare	we stare at each other
he is tall thin gaunt with long white hair & beard
clad in a brown home spun gown & cord sandals
he goes to the sink & offers me a soaked turnip

is this me in another life time		could i live
this life day in        day out	

tonight i will sleep out for i cannot stay	
                                      we have not spoken a word

i eat the turnip		his only nourishment
& leave as suddenly as i came	        to a memory
which now hinges on a dream	        as though
a desert wind should move a dune	where
you wake to find what you left behind is beyond you still

 

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Missing Link An AudioTextual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

by

 

 

so far up to now
what comes after after 	question
what comes after after	 answer

recognition of an intention
take it or leave it	an object of thought
in word & image	to a certain extent
on the vertigo edge of vortex

up front	after	logical 
preambles on proof of origins
lead nowhere in particular or general
come to that it may be said		do not
begin in the begin		but in the 'medias res'

	slaughter the insects
the wild wandering albatross
	the elephants & the children too

back to normal
	everyone sing along
it's all a game of power in the end
	for everyone	    right or wrong
	it's an age of controle freak

of totalitarian double speak
	on the wrecking light
unfolds the millennium
in a race to get to the next word
	to get it heard by might & right
before we're switched off like the radio

	a danse macabre of marionettes
		after all that's gone before
	nothing's left of us at all
but echoes with no promise of return
		but our extinction

on that precipice	the vertigo vortex	  trembles
millennium titling			   outward bound 
but bound to the rock	    jailhouse	around the clock 
in the billionaire grab market         racket          packet
the power of money	  meanwhile   back at the ranch
			nature in freefall
	all creatures great & small	we arbitrate
but it's too too late	to reciprocate	  circumstantiate

 

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Out of Range (i.) An Audio Text Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

by

Out of Range (i.)
Version (i.)
*

a mauve sky	   grey pine	 dawn breaks      out of  the black	ripes       pale blue 
& green	  the painter's eye     steals the words on my breath

*
a storm of cicadas	a multitude of the unseen 	chorus in the pine    we are here   
small & large   before invasion  from the skies    helicopters policing the boundaries 
of consciousness

*
out of bounds    fucking fences against the skyline  	   barbed hegemony	  for fear 
the world will open like a chasm & swallow you     drone of the traffic closing in    smell 
of human rubbish           dumped   

*
the leaning day       belongs where          i  understand  i know i believe        i believe i 
understand i know    who cares    where leaning freezes    where leaning melts    where 
not even shadows are left

*
belonging to what	belonging to where	belonging  to belonging     more or less 	it 
depends on the direction	i suppose     i feel like an air spider    out of range

*  
on a sea of glass    a parade of phantoms	line up like a pageantry of Argonauts      on 
the edge of the world    what is the purpose of such dreams     i ask myself    do i wanna 
play skittles

*
a moving pattern of events	    a shape beckons	  to an impossible horizon	  a 
dimension    a spontaneous creation    i live in hope    or perhaps 	in the desperation of 
life before death

*
since  the out of range is beyond controle	  there is no belonging     nor reach     but is 
it a direction     as when the arrow's flight disappears in the blue

*
or when the soaring bird	soars more	leaving you lighter than air    or am i back at 
the beginning again	  for you cannot go on paying forever    

*
enough      who needs  horizons to speak of	       let them vanish large & small	small & 
large     avoid voidness    

but beware       there are no archetypes      other than those we have made        over time    
however animate nature might be	  

*
still the shape perhaps beckons       still we sleep on air      like swifts on flight to 
distant skies

*
dawn sometimes is a background of yapping domestic dogs     suddenly      somewhere     
deep in the density of the wooded hill	   a single bark from a solitary stray	    i see  
four foal deer today

*
everywhere it's best just to find a cover & make it the rest	   a spot is sufficient

*
a figure in the distance approaches	       through many resemblances	         before 
recognition      memory is an evolutionary tool	    they say	  but it can also serve 
to betray

*
time has many dimensions   it appears     but it's always an event	  for the reality 
of now to be real    time must be real     

what is real   nothing is real they say     well nothing & a bit     even the present gets out of 
range after a while	

*
coughing & spluttering on fumes	like the ramshackle motorcycle that's beaten me 
to the chase at the top of the path	    

i breathe after the fragrance of dawn       breaking with it 's mirage of green       as DNA 
sparkles in the dew         wondering next       which way to go

*
trees can look majestic       but they can also look twisted grasping & monstrous with their 
litter of dead wood scattered on the ground       

like the bones of the countless dead      mostly when evening rots

*
below me now is nothing but the tinkling bells of the goat herd & shouts of the herder

*
everywhere is strewn the ruins of the dykes	      amidst a deluge of rocks       stones & 
boulders    fallen to uselessness in less than a century from their hand built toil       less 
than a century before    

now they form only in their overgrown tomb      a fading phantom history

*
a  full dawn moon	 mere earthlings we exist because of her bounty	     despite her 
indifferent scorn     insects scurry    we tread       soon i'll get to water	      where 
now she fades out of day                                                         
                                                                                out of range

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Approach. An Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

by 

approach	 approach	approach
alone in my heart
let the day sail away
i shall stay in exaltancy
the dust track leads 
nowhere	in twilight she disrobes
anywhere's a gradient		nowhere
dawn is like this stray dog
two years ago		crying somewhere
they had bulldozed		afraid	lost		
their way through this
the local alcalde believed
the dust track		it would improve the economy
little did he know elephants return to the wilderness
wilderness wilderness wilderness	leads nowhere		
			in exaltancy	
			at great heights
at twilight		
the grandeur of the boulders		she disrobes
hovering upon the hillside		alone in my heart
approach	approach	approach
will hurtle down to unfathomble
the day sails			depths
now extends their itness
as we approach	approach	approach

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Yellow Blues. An Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

by

yellow dust flights of hazes present as absent abstractions
as dawn breakings
as the ache of unfathomable memories
hauntings in a trackless desert of signs we make believe
each moment the better to kiss it goodbye like a butterfly
trapped beneath the sky

our entangled fate moves us only to wait the next entrapment
a seizure of happen stance dreams

as spectres of the day before its fall
and all we slay have slain after the birth of name
across that vast indifferent drift
that once seen we trembled in awe before

the arbitrariness of fate we now articulate
in our indentured voice amidst the tumult

& how could we ask for more when before us is only wall
we splatter our graffiti on
we threw our amazed cries like spears on the fresh wind

flights of hazes in the yellow dust
present in their absent abstraction
we make believe each moment the better to kiss it
                                                                      it goodbye

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Strange Fruit. Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

by


 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Millenium. An Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

by


 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

9 more for the road. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop. Excerpt from Off the Menu

by

(i)

enough bread on the window sill
to feed a thousand birds
goat shit in the air
we walk on fetid sewers
like the rats that inhabit them
immuno

O noble savage
what lies beyond the heart of darkness
bonobos!
Elon Musk thinks
we must be in a simulation
otherwise we’d have gone extinct
& he’s footing the bill
we can’t object
to being disembodied brains in vats
on clipboards
anymore than dinosaurs!

(ii)

like a long dead insect
motor cycles in electric windows gleam
as if trying to get on to get off
a swerve
on the hill jammed in the valley
houses stacked like egg boxes
cloud & smoke at the interstices
traffic drone pedestrians cast like shadows
at night orange electrics
hang out converging symmetries
almost ephemerally
i am its inmate its identity
a dark amorphous mass
turning towards a lighted doorway
to scrawl its signature

(iii)

a fictitious identity effacing present
with a replaced distance
yonder
where the moment drifts
a wandering mind
on a happen stance edge
like light on the sea
an ephemeral instance of memory
a dazzling illusion of tongues
stained with the dust of ages
where i walk on sand
hearing those voices fall over
the horizon of this flat world
our mirror neurons
reconstructing a past
as a theatre of ghosts
a semblance
clinging to the threshold of the present
on the precipice of nothingness

(iv)

about

omnicide or superhuman cosmicide
long lived areosols
war of the trawlers
seabed shreds
bots
triffids
a glass house menagerie
we will
open all doors to take away
moments ever had
writ now
signifiers on tabloids
which will be erased
our experience about
& present
in our crooked
corner of the world
as indifferent
as day & night

(v)

head on
all the hype
a tattered flag
a battered form
signal & sign
before ruins
a monolithic artefact
the grain of yesterday’s tears
vanishing on a whim
in a whirlwind of dust
in multiple dusts
every day
the fumes rage
print the page
we rise from with hands
of clay
hang the numbers out to dry
a bag of tricks

(vi)

a lottery tumbler of memory
we choose at random
listen to the echoes
of our idiot dreams
address the parade
of paradoxical masks
sink into our
straight jackets that bind us
to tomorrow’s sky
with its
empty promises from before

(vii)

sex on the beach
a beverage
the sign said
tucked into a snug cove
where we sun our limbs
in wicker seats
with seagulls & snorklers
flipper fins plashing
the glitttering sea
white foam breaking
chiffon on the rocks

we blip a 1,000 selfies
on the jelly roll fleshly
nubile spawning shore
biologically hacked
biologically raped
under a celloid blue sky
buffet on plastic mariscos
before we drift off
towards our yellow beige
alabaster domed cupolas
our palatial hotel chateau
to enter its catacombs
bathed in golden light
like holographic silhouettes
at night rats will scourge
the waterfront promenade
festooning rubbish bins
neglected either by
white linen underpaid
immigrant blacks from
the hotels or pissed off
government employee cleaners

(viii)

GOOD NEWS
New Study / People
eat at least 80,000
plastic particles a year
Story of the week

i rise from my 5 dollar a day
chez longe my 1.50 dollar
a day umbrella shade
to float on the see through sea
spitting out those same particles
washed inshore watching
brown bits of sewage dirt
through the corners of my eyes

( University of Victoria Canada
who led the research
other foods such as bread
processed products
meat dairy & vegetables
may well contain
just as much plastic)

cluster into filmy layers
to coagulate with algae
& mollusk on the rocks
that adorn the bay
& tilting my head
i look outward
to where the sun
will set on a distant isle.

(ix)

nothing is resolved
to be continued
things just get further away
a distance lost
in the translation of the moment
on a qucksilver sand
where memory betrays
the mirror symmetries from before
on this landslide life
where all the riddles remain
which i cannot fish out
from the pond of meaning
to dazzle the day those enigmas
that have shaped me up
to the intangible now that i am
as unexpected their appearance
& disappearance were they can
mean no more purpose for me
but that i was not their cause

      on looking back

       
       

       
       
      Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems and translations from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae (the award winning XIII Premio César Simón De Poesía). In November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds, UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020.
       
       
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      Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com . You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his
      work Performance (University of Leeds)