The last train to Arcady

The art and poetry of Steev Burgess

Sun May 19
12 notes

“The entomologist’s song”

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1 note

“The artist and the drunk dragoon”

Tue May 14
2 notes

Foreboding (poem draft)

FOREBODING

I sense that somebody is there

The triangle is formed again

Renting the blood inside my head

Spending the ink inside my pen.

I see the old men raise their hats

To passing shadows midnight blue

Though I expected to be hurt

I did not think t’would be by you.

Your nightmares trot through disturbed nights

In gothic carnival parades

The troika pull in unison

Their equine heads in black cockades.

Well I expected someone young

While sweet you’re old as earth itself

The atoms dance upon your tongue

You make a mockery of wealth.

Though, in your way, you’re beautiful

And bring relief from searing pain

And like the flush of orgasm

You come and then, you’re gone again.

Sometimes when she would dab her eyes

I didn’t see the tiny speck

That Larkin saw at four AM

That really holds us all in check

But soon I’m drifting back to sleep

The Sandman makes his honeycombe

Till hummingbirds nibble my eyes

And I awake to write and roam.

Out in the fields wild orchids rise

And in the trees the pigeons coo

Though I brought flowers to her gate

Her final date of course was you.

One day when stuborn still I stand

Forgetful and forgotten then

The one who took them all away

Will lead me slowly by the hand.

So wear the sigal round your neck
Cloaked in streams of opium,
Until the monkey drummer drops
A beat and all of this is gone.

Steev Burgess

Sun May 12
3 notes

“Arrival”

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2 notes

“A Question of perspective”

Fri May 10
1 note

This is me and the poet Fran Lock being demonstrative in london last saturday.

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1 note

Lay back and think of Bees (poem draft)

They nod in recognition

Like members of a secret cabal

Guardians of an unlocked truth

That I’d do well to subscribe to

And make sense of this chaos.

With some of them

It’s all they talk about

While eying me with suspition

“He’s not one of us”.

But is it so special?

Pushing a pram in Altricham

Or chortling with a child in Chorlton?

I mean, anyone could do it -and they do

Even birds and Bees, replacing prams with nests in trees.

So were those dilating pupils

And soft caressing fingers

Simply seeking pupae as they lingered?

All hopes pinned on the future generation

To sort out the mess we’ve been left?

Or is it just the last ride at the fairground

Of life experiences

The richer you are the more rides you try before this one?

Meanwhile, our infants overpopulate and devour the planet

As well as any other infestation

And if I had sprogs they’d be moulded to be cogs

In the heartless Capitalist competition generator

Chugging away burning oil asking us to fill in the coupon.

Well, I’m not playing

I won’t place my hens in your batteries,

Holiday Inn’s or theatres of war,

Create you own collatoral damage if you want to.

All this talk of “hard working families” seem like vulgarities

As the children of the well meaning, well educated left,

Become shareholders in this illusion,

Laughing behind their hands at their parents ideals

Like platform shoes and bad haircuts.

Frankly, I’d rather hang in the hexagon hotel

And raise Bees.

.

S Burgess

Note: This is no reflection on some very good friends of mine who have chosen to have children - only those who try to make you weird because you don’t want them. We also have to face the fact that the world is past it’s optimum number of people, whoever they are.

Thu May 9
1 note

“The ghost of your memory”

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The Indelicates

I know I’m going on about this band (again) but I don’t think they’ve really reached the audience they deserve yet. Check out this track from the new album, have you heard anything better this year?

Wed May 8
0 notes

This is a track from the new Indelicates album, described by Simon Indelicate as thus ““It is not”, says Simon, abandoning himself to the fires of unlovely pretension, “A half-unlaced corset of an album, it is more a dusty, gore spattered top hat with the end kicked out and re-attached with catgut.”

The new songs range from the situationist sloganeering of ‘Bitterness Is The Appropriate Response’ and ‘Pubes’ to the glimmer-of-hope songcraft of ‘Not Alone’ and Skyrim referencing ‘Dovahkiin’ via the stately complexity of ‘I Used To Sing’, the aching sneer of ‘Le Godemiché Royal’ and ‘Everything is Just Disgusting’ and the operatic hyperbole of ‘Dirty Diana’.

Do check this band out, in world where tastes are becoming SO bland, this fizzes like a sour on your tongue.