Back to Dreaming E. MisK
Date: Fri, 20 May 88 22:25:46 CDT
From: crclarke@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu
Subject: "Control: A translation"
I recently came across two works of John Carder Bush. I was able to obtain a copy of one as follows:
Bush, John Carder, "Control: A translation", Rushden,
Northamptonshire, Eng.: Sceptre Pr., 1974.
When God comes at me
do I bow the stallion's legs
or meet him with flared nostrils?
When Man comes at me
do I rein in the stallion,
or let him meet the hooves?
When Woman comes at me
do I let her take the bridle,
or turn away the head?
When Animal comes at me
the stallion stalls at simplicity:
I cannot make him face attack.
When I come at me
the stallion bolts:
I find him nuzzling the reflecting water.
When I
and stallion
blend the grass gets cropped.
I was unable to obtain a copy of another work. Perhaps someone out there could post it? It's only a couple of pages.
Bush, John Carder, "The Creation Edda: A poem", Frensham, Surrey, Eng.: Sceptre Pr., 1970.
Libraries with copies:
UCLA
Harvard
SUNY @ Buffalo
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 88 09:04 PDT
From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: "The Creation Edda"
Fulfilling a Love-Hounds request, here is a transcription of John's poem, The Creation Edda (The Sceptre Press, 1970).
The Creation Edda
Embla ascends the slope, climbs up from ribbed lava
to flesh hurting ash blasts;
Ask lingers behind her.
Dampness from creation
steams on the crater thigh.
She straddles Hekla's mouth,
he sucks the boiling mound:
copulation brings screams,
the volcano dribbles
paths to lower them down
satiated by fire
never to know on earth
the lip of such pleasure.
On the black strand
symbols are now exposed,
bones arranged
in runic death patterns:
the world cycle
demonstrated by stone,
wood and flat iron.
Embla lies with each thing,
Ask looks and knows.
Understanding
without explanation
they depart and separate.
The land is a circle,
when they have run they meet,
find they can now converse,
react to the unclothed
brushings of mouth and loin.
On the ice flow they grip,
cut, twist, break open seeds
throwing out the white salt, (((((((An earlier draught has this line
as "throwing out the white land,".)))))))
revive volcanic dreams:
unable to satisfy
their diminuated lust
the allegoric flesh
learns the thrill of return.
They wake to birds singing
the purple of snow skies. (An earlier draft has this line as
"the purple of cloud skies.")
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 89 11:26 PDT
From: IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu
Subject: Rumors condemned to Tower of London
Anthony Meadley asks whether there is any truth to the story that some of John Carder Bush's poetry has been consigned to the Tower of London for its obscenity. No. The truth is that two of John Carder Bush's poems, published ca. 1970-74, are housed in the Special Collections Room at the British Library. This is a collection more often referred to as the "Enfer" (Hell), because it was used to keep so-called obscene (mainly pornographic) books in a separate place from the main collection.
The poems, however, are not what anyone (except perhaps our more righteous and "sin"-obsessed minority) would call pornographic. The fact is that there are a great many books that are in the BL's SC which "make the grade" by a very slim margin, so to speak. It's really no big deal.
(IED says "a couple of poems", because JCB has published a few of his two- or three-page poems individually, as books.)
-- Andrew Marvick
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 91 15:42:11 EST
From: Andrew B Marvick <abm4@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu>
Subject: "Terminal Ward"
finally, IED would like to apologize for his failed attempt to post more of John Carder Bush's poetry the other day. Here, then, for the interest of anyone and everyone, is another poem by JCB, this one quite different in subject and style from Control or The Creation Eddas :
"Terminal Ward"
The appearance of a lump on Sunday
calcified an area of thought,
set up bulwarks and made
procrastination a thief.
And now,
well now, now it's
a half circle of flowers, soft fruit,
roses that celebrate the crab's progress.
Recently the pain left words
inadequate for such extremes,
necessitated the euphoric mixture
well tested for travel sickness:
heroin to float the dazed brain,
cocaine to keep it there,
gin, the acceptable dog's hair,
orange juice to con the palate,
so that being eaten alive
was often an amusing affair.
It's the detail that lingers,
the practised dealing with details
that the initiates do so well:
the cult words, the curtained corners,
the rotten joke of a severed breast.
The accumulation of mysteries
that can horrify
more than that,
more than that food bag for death
slipping in and out of hell
on an iron bed.
He whimpered into his wife's bed,
to demonstrate the game he wished to play
he growled at her through yellow teeth.
But she rejected him, his odours of rotting flesh,
kicked him to the floor with a slippered foot
so that he crumpled on the bedroom rug:
enteritic, he vomited under the moose horns,
howling, he dabbled his fingers in the day's fare.
-- John Carder Bush
Here, from a large collection of poems dealing with aspects of war, violence and death, is a poem which will certainly interest any Kate Bush fan who remembers the subject of Kate's "Pull Out the Pin". (Sorry, this poem does have a title, but it is illegible in IED's copy):
Over the top of shell smashed bamboo come
wet smells of equipment, the unseen battle aura.
Heavy weapon, cleansed in animal oil, strains against
steel hat bouncing the haircut flat.
For henbane and oak apple leaf take cannabis:
eat it an hour before, let the ginger dust
stick among the molars ready for a long suck
after direction is established.
The vest itches: the brass tipped jewel belt
pulls him into a safe crouch, like among the bayou
with his father's looted Spandau after rats;
behind the straps of his helmet a banjo is rolling
backwater breakdowns. His oak handled forty-five
glue warm from the last grip over a latrine
slaps at his legs.
Doctor John, the gristle breaker, is yoked on his shoulders:
the bone butcher bends him, pushes him forward.
The smoke of God is tickling his forehead;
it's getting good now, nothing uptight in the ditch,
the frogs make fair requiems. Open the Doctor's legs,
warm the stock with hairy cheeks and thumb in
the thunder, the back cracking art thunder
that indents them, kicks them back to the jungle.
One is double marching, so close, on the gunners' trench:
the cord of tracer lead is moving him from side to side,
he is dancing, he is partnered by the bullets.
Chain belt empty, the chopped V.C.s drift into the swamp
all their holes bubbling saspirilla froth.
He is blocked solid by his machine gun, knees under chin,
arms between thighs, awake, aware of his boot laces.
It's cool to be a hero: Arvin and Olaf shoulder him
to the helicopter gunships. Arvin is spread to his left,
Olaf is starred to his right, but he floats on:
his numbers hit him like balls on the outfield
and he turns over and over with his boots reversed
to break against the bird's wheel.
The last grains dislodge; the banjo strings curl in
before the airblades take him up among starbursts.
-- John Carder Bush
John's poetry has appeared in The Poetry Review, Tracks, Samphire, The Sceptre Press, Catholic Education Today, Poets' Workshop Pamphlet, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio London.
-- Andrew Marvick
written by Love-Hounds
compiled and edited
by
Wieland Willker
Sept 1995 June 1996