Peripheral Poems

Sebastian Paris

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

Luke 22:43

Peripheral Poems

Sebastian Paris

- Body

- Union

- Memory

- Charioteer

- Grid

- Totalitarian

- Beauty poems:

Untitled

Embrace

Untitled

- Refuge

- Son of God

- Consummation

- Untitled

- Untitled

- Beat

- Admiration

- Jomo

- Termination

- Dream

- The Valley

- John

- Winter Carrion

- Darkness

- Morning Birdsong

- Evening Birdsong

Body

Heavenly soul gushing loved earth

Loved the earth

Loved you God

O God I loved you

Pouring down

Sandy human whirlpool

Loads of gorgeous sun

grains

Migrate

We’re diving

Body bubbling

Sun setting downpour

Sunset

Touchdown

Bliss

Union

I’ll sing in your key as your words drown the lean solitude

My song tells of the splendour of your face

Your laurel- kissed brow—

Your sun-washed curls and untold arch of spread thigh,

Relenting pained gift of fresh lily, you who carry

Your untold life in mine

—Hide my eyes so I may see no more suffering—

How it hints of the warmest summer blanket

—Take me away so I may feel no more pain—

When I moved under empyreal blossom of hastening heaven,

Perched light on thick boughs, embroidering a mantle of

young flowers for your head

Smile unto unapproachable stream

Remember to be human

One time I was, I was gifted with sight that spoke into

answer

Who lauded my beauty,

Life spoke therein

Arms raised unbeknown to the beat of crackling sun,

I danced with you under repose orbits

Cheering your dissembling bend— chasing the betraying

Presence of your meandering grace—

Stay, please to reside in you is my body’s peace

Beyond our bodies soars the terrible saviour, roaring

Burning before the eternal kingdom

Come, may we hold each other as we look out across the park

upon the precipice?

——O my God it is your love that makes me tremble——

Return to myself, behold; I must not say it for I do not

know

Behold, take in

Silent ebb take in

Close eyes, sink into womb— sprinkled silk settling in

Proud breeze, ushered by

Oceanic, sleep

Become swept away

Quaking earthen vows that

Soothe underneath

In you came, out you went

How I loved you, how I went with you into the darkness.

Memory

In the quiet waning of day

We sat alone together in the grass;

Upon a blustery bank; the slow end of summer crept along

The calm ponds and mixed new

Forest of mostly tall dark conifer as well as sparser ancient trees

Subsisting peacefully,

Some lonely ruins nestled there discretely,

Out of sight

You were part of the sun

An immutable angel standing in the sun

I confided in you about that time I passed away under some bushes

I died that day under some bushes

Passed away under a pillar of pain,

The sound of your cries were deafening,

My body sank into the marshy crevice of the

Crying earth, yet your face always shone for me,

The sun peered forth through the tall grass as a crown

Of bright beams and softer rivulets of light that

Rested peacefully upon dotting blades

Listening,

We sat alone together in the world’s shadow,

I said how I would die for you

Again and again

With aching love

In abominable fire, like a martyr

I will burn for you

My blazing body will roar,

Take my words and hold them tight; they are more precious than gold

Beautiful angel of the earth

I will go to you

Fleeting light,

I sing for you and draw you near me

Perfect acquiescence—

Before I even breathed,

We share in each other’s life;

All around us, the intensity of undergrowth burns like a melody to this

I show you a rose glowing in the palm of my hand

That grew alone in winter, gently tapping my window pane

You tell me all your fears

Inside I lament how much I adore you

We make love and glimpse

Eternity unimaginable

I drop my head in bliss, holding our hopes of heaven

We lay upon the earth, taking in each other’s hidden pulse,

Like a blanket, I keep you warm

All that you ever wanted to be you are to me

For me, you resound like a god

I cry like a child at all the beauty in the world

I see it all in your eyes and my heart dies

My heart truly dies

Your dreams melt my heart

Here, beneath the sun on this bed of grass

My soul smiles at the thought of us together in paradise

Later on, as the sun goes in

We play innocent games

I feel it forever, we are so happy

Love covers us both like some silvery liquid dome

Protecting us from the evening cold

I make a promise to you; I say I will never leave you

You see into me and I relent all that I am

All my memories caress me; they kiss me goodbye

They ascend

Have ascended, are ascending

There’s a little gap in the air— sudden miracle

A little eye, blinking tenderly in the grass

You shudder under a passing breeze

That speaks a living truth

It whispers I am with you

We close our eyes

The last thing we see is each other.

Charioteer

My body rested on the foamed slipping tide

Ushering blue ambivalence,

I saw a specter unsupported in the sky

And henceforth was set to fill some lapsed coordinate,

Beeping red

Anomalous, across a grid of flashing points;

Visceral throb amid a symphony of signals

This was always the way it was going to be…

Loving the living air,

I told the woods how apparently, it was a monumental,

ecstatic

Cleansing fear

About how I was separated and set to wander the desert

Under Azazel’s pleading glare,

Clenching his hands with all my strength,

Conjuring portals around the indistinct

Circumference of his streaming fragmentation,

Through rushing sockets,

Gaping with tears

Hurling myself against the heat-reflective glass door

Over the desperate barbarism of your head in the oven,

Meeting dreadful hint of prickly gas

With cheek, in throat

Raped incessant doe chucked into darkness, squealing

Wincing from the acid shower

Heaving mountainous limbs outward

Titan-esque,

Thrown outward

Sexing the farthest stars

Salvaging suitable pieces of skin

Zeno says there is no thought

There is no thought

Only the conscientious trajectory of hell,

Mute limp in front of pressurized furnace

Delivering my diamond lyre to the clear sky along

Iris’

Pitying arms

Shouting your name forever upon golden steps

While all along a smiling sapling

Perched at the base of one of the mighty slabs

Breathes a serenade;

Timid roots fumbling along the paved inlet,

Like a miniature oriental fan decorating the rich line

of soil,

I proceed to tear myself apart.

Grid

During my life I saw descend a superimposition.

O the fear…

the abomination,

the defilement and desolation,

the rabid devouring,

this is how you delete yourself,

yet this is the way to navigate, underneath

beneath the waves of radar for scents of sustenance

of salvific dew,

petrified as human stone,

walking again, weeping again with captive eyes,

screaming as they proceed to delete us,

gone now… the other day

I woke up, walked out

Into the dark

there was nothing, only the illusion of a world…

Go then, go with the world

go, go with the world,

When meaning dies the minds eye reveals its sanctity,

this is seen in my sick pleasure in the total reich,

when I commit myself to memory

then look out at all the perfect machine

reproofs hovering in the chaos,

or is this sacrificing myself?

During my life I saw extend the final prison,

the rise of a kind of man-stained sentry

underscored by seeming streaming pulses,

throbbing outward from repeated centralities;

I who was given into this suffering equation,

who contemplated the voiceless blossom—

the mountains of the dead churned by quiet lights.

Totalitarian

I protect my discursus with a paisley wrapping paper,

It admits its cellulosic culpability, its drained expediency,

every time

I dare to think,

In all of this I try to conserve a fractal of history (I expel a chuff

of laughing despair),

Spencer is scrawled on irresolute and phenomenal,

I now consider the prospect of epithalamiums restitution

A couple of pages ago, the genetic score of flowering is conveyed

equally in abstracto,

It leaves me abject and adrift,

like convalescent debris of the winds exhaust

incandescent,

I roam the inconsequentia that stretches for miles, trying

to rectify consciousness.

[In hindsight I remember I wanted nothing to do with the

world,

I want nothing to do with the world]

yet I love the world with all my heart.

I bet the speed with which the deliberated molecule can travel is faster than you can run.

It’s a shot-put diplomacy (you must let go) that portends to me

when I ask the mind how it is, in this

I’m a card-carrying psychopath;

some southern black giant holding the swamp in his trousers,

lashing furiously for his master in the mellow brush,

pacing down virtual Houston, totting double-barrelled revolvers,

delighted with the

ferocity.

Here, I skirt the backwaters of insanity,

meandering through tender swathes of

slender, coiled jungle lilies, trying to rectify consciousness.

Every morning the factory apartments take in the sun,

I glimpse them in their geometric profundity,

they become like inlets of absorptive, muttering

transparency; they ask softly of my hubris

as I watch in the solitariness of the departed

It strikes me with a kind of potentiality.

I listen to him cough, trying to brush off his death

I collect myself and a bitter-sweet

globule of phlegm clings to my mouths cavern,

I’m restoring my system,

Both myself and machine ignite

I’m getting ready to disembark,

I’m like jagged glass laced with sex

I concentrate my organism into the

nucleation of finitude

& proceed, to proceed….

I’m prowling the lazy ochre dusk

(I remember you now)

my veins are decorated with honeysuckle

we linger and wilt in the molten twilight,

smoking in the human heat;

shooting up residual goodness under a flyover of

heathery magma, grit and chaff

expectant, grateful.

The air rushes over me.

Beauty poems:

Untitled

Such wondrous forms!

O lustrous splendor of intimate embedded sight,

That I may see through the eyes of you enigmatic, quiet

beauties

Who float along the avenues, streets and hills of these

stricken chasms;

Utterly wallow in the eyes…

Trace the arterial crescent that electrifies my paltry

being,

Shell-shocked,

That I may, pray

Rise to the glory of your light, igniting your dreams;

I should grant endless wishes,

Reside and dwell in you

Until my airy passage is rounded with the final sleep;

Drawing dewy nectar in such bliss, with such undying love,

Boldly navigating the sculpted contours of your skin with my

steady tongue,

Singing everlasting praise.

Embrace

Out of my chest let there sprout a scaffold of faith,

A fountain to collect every tear wept in pain and

disillusionment,

Neglect and dreaded resignation witnessed with you

Entirely,

Felt in mirror-like intensity and soothed by my invulnerable

conscience

Dwelling inexorably within you,

Touched repeatedly and emboldened

By the very miracle of your resplendent presence,

Sowing the entirety of my blazing life in every minutia of

your actions

As my fleeting passage completes itself;

Ah to dance with you in paradise…

In joyous bounty,

As graceful conduits of endless life,

Through dense forests of the minds exodus,

Where beauty lives forever in peace,

Unscathed.

Untitled

Pristine blinding form!

Beckoned by your glittering irises,

Riding the tender arch of your wide eyebrows;

My intimate bonfire…

Shudder of longing- shaking ecstatic in your heady heat,

Strong devoted arm laid upon your sleeping body,

Our brows gently mounted in wedlock,

Mourning residual distance with weeping song until there’s

none,

Let sirens nullify disunity and gently soothe all pains;

O pitiful ache of piercing love…

Wrapped tightly in your invisible silk,

Basking in your every shadow, delicately stroking my

miraculous gift,

Rendering the bridge of our bodies with impregnable steel;

It’s cables embedded with amethyst and sapphire,

Adamantine and gold.

Refuge

— he escapes

far, far away,

beyond anywhere known,

with mind,

& tucks his eyes inside

he covers himself in soothing churns of silvery matter

that settle into wide celestial ribbons of fluid

metal,

he huddles defenselessly in the huge folds;

entire swathes coalesce, console

he covers equal ways

comforting sounds that span more than the ends

loom

over his diminutive,

eviscerated shape.

Son of God

I’m always snatching pieces of heaven,

Seeking to smooth the escaping encroachment;

You are a queer fountain of these pieces, these

threads.

I walk the silent paths of your manifestation

With a kind of crushing love,

You are like a gift from heaven to me,

Your dreams are like the suns rays

Whose warmth I seek;

They guide my wondrous, desperate flight.

Consummation

Here, escaped figment of present—

Of presence, I take up my death

Inhabiting the unfolding dissolution

With every rapt wire of life,

Welcoming your overflowing body to my chapped, combed lips,

Whose fantastical residence is inscribed with whorled groans

Of my cooing heart—

Brushed with my incensed chest, that concedes

My wide pleading bounty

Of the pleasantest fruit, dipping beneath diamond rays—

My stone hands which drip with sweet myrrh

And oceanic ebb of soft shoulder over

quivering ribs

And sun effaced visage, departing above

slender halos,

Where light- rimmed tributaries

disband with sparkling hymnody;

Inaugurating the doved meniscus of

Neptune,

Bequeathing foreign luminance,

Holding Uranus, blown

Turquoise,

Rolled out brazened, beckoning the birthed panoply

Of sight— marooned in heaven,

Skirted by constellations of primordial dolphins that

Navigate the suns clear headway,

Permeating— Just

Permeating the exterior volcanic shapes

Of the walled semblance of paradise,

Here horizoned One I beg to receive you.

Here I drag my hushed dread across this sick plane of

Bodily, apparitional

Weight— tilted; to crawl like a chameleon of air, fraying

petals of

Chrysanthemum between pure, scraped fingers—

In your sweet memory I lay my rest.

In moments of respite, I partake in the sad ceaseless song,

They are notes that play out in an absolved air

Intonated in eternity—

I traverse my peace in your azure body

And am reminded of this, in these

moments I am soothed,

I am given some glimmer of a gift,

In these moments reality lends

itself,

Tarnished only with tears over leaving.

Untitled

I do not know you,

I do not know your

untold beauty,

I do not know your beauty

I do not know your thoughts or feelings,

Intentions, form or

voice,

I do not know your

plan…

I do not understand you

or your truth,

Wrath or

Life

And I have no

relationship with you that

I know of, I am

nothing.

Untitled

——I’m sitting here with some music on, writing this, thinking about how I’m going to say it. Thinking

about how I can possibly express how much I love you. All the poetry in the world cannot do justice to

how beautiful you are to me. My beautiful angel, I love you more than anything. You are everything to me

and I can’t possibly begin to explain why. I love you more than anything and want to be with you always.

All I care about is making you happy and exploring life with you. Being innocent and gleefully absent-

minded, dirty and downright filthy with you! Absolutely everything with you. Burning brightly in your

eyes, your image incrusted upon my sight, I’ll smile every time I open mine. You yield endless sighs from

me. Your presence flows through the cracked hollow that hangs like smoke filling with gentle cavernous

desire. In you it’s slowly turned to beaming gold; I want to take you away to heaven and look after you.

Love hearts more than anything. It’s true! Words cannot express my love, although it feels so right to

speak about you this way, probably because it begins to approach the weight of my intimate testament to

your beauty and how much you mean to me. I’ll stand and cry of the end although the notes are subtle

and fragrant, precious invitations to swoon over your sunlit smile as the tender haze of the forested

sunset embalms our patient bodies, lapping our light brows. No matter what happens I’ll be there for

you. We’ll be shining together amidst the darkness. I go into myself and question why we were meant to

meet. Why were you meant to make me yearn for you and cry to myself when your not with me? Why are

you so beautiful? I go deep into myself and shudder at the immorality of my feelings, then I throw away

my morality then I repent and bleed thanks for your coming into my life. Why was I meant to write about

you like this? Nevertheless it will never be enough my love. I’ll dance to my mute grave performing for

you, singing about you with all my heart. ——

Beat

I followed you and heard you sing.

It was like a swallow’s song,

Only more triumphant;

Pure, bold and desirous,

Lingering on the scents

Of home.

Admiration

Hey babe,

You are the only one for me,

You are the only one,

I cannot help it,

I cannot help it…

And you are my (dirty little)

secret, and I love you,

And I cannot help it,

I cannot help it.

Jomo (pronounced Joe- moe)

Jomo

Don't you fuckin mess.

There she'd waltz, half-awake, fag in mouth, down clough road,

Face like a slapped arse.

Jomo

Purring loopy spells out her block o' flats,

Gypsy pirate of oggy park, levitating off tenth floor.

One o’ them proper pirates that would dig up the fish trail for her pie,

Don't you fuckin mess.

Don't you fuckin mess mate!

Jomo had muscles— fuckin’ body builder in her spare time wunt she!

Or so you'd think,

Or just fat.

Spent all her time walking up n' down that fuckin road anyway!

Jomo

Smoked a harsh bacci that meant you couldn't share her fuckin

atmosphere for more then ten seconds,

Jarred the throat, her big fat black coat,

Waltzing on over with her robot-textbook answer to a customer complaint…

Call centre air condish’ blazin, Jomo fucking stinking

O' shit.

Jomo.

She wer 6'foot,

Go visiting her lezzer bulldog lover outside sainsbobs, waltzing giant wunt she,

Liasing like a pair of dozy spies,

Drunk off love and cider,

Knuckle-rinsing concrete matrimony down the longest

Road this side of east yorkshire,

Or maybe even the world,

Consummated fast as shit between slices of that massive useless wind turbine.

Termination

He still curls over in momentary arrest—

Still stricken briefly, with cerebral birth pangs

Over the slow realization,

Only to calmly depart— to

Float through the walls of his room to the outside

Above the wet carpeted grass,

Reaching out for the particles of birds,

Still labouring nonetheless, still wrestling

Across the endless desert

That will no longer bloom.

Dream

In between the hurtling asteroids and all this velocity of glistening

meteoritic—

chaste,

spittle & cosmic 

swirl,

we’re watching one of those trashy horror films,

relishing it like a pair of cheap dates at a fifties drive-in,

miniaturized to fit the laptop screen, just about  

persisting on our shoddy little coffee table &—

that’ll do for now I assure you (gorging myself on popcorn),

the delicious moon  

howls along with us, casting a blue velvet 

that paints the back garden

steely noir, en-framing life in cool

technicolor; shadowed by this dream I had of space!

My arm draped around you, watching the movie 

of our lives…

illumination off harsh semi-arid grit,

shuttling forth, though I’m laying it all down,

however fast everything is

flying, &

I’m trying to steer, commemorating the perfection of formation, &

that sense of unity of creation &

differentiated form &

insurmountable precipice of the tallest clouds of 

purest hydrogen, &

the planetary spheres in their entirety; supernumerarygalaxies

incomprehensible, revolving toward the unknown, &

all of this for you— for our eyes only— seeing 

each other in everything,

as everything falls,

awash with glittery stars, debris trails of velvet, this—

kaleidoscope of dancing suns, sliding down,

strike and vivifying lightning, yes &

I wish, I love — you and all of this, though I cannot see you in all this noise, 

unstuck & stickered goes the glued-on perfection of drowned

jeweled, collaged firmament,

dazzling against— just pressed against your 

silken body; this avalanche of myself and not myself,

voyeur at shuttle peep-hole desiring like a time-bomb, 

triggered now

imprint— now,

bind you now with all my dirty love & snake-like slither whip just 

below the base 

of your bellybutton &,

sat next to you now, on this rollercoaster running wild in the night,

final bend nearing &

I’m sensing you with all of me; actually holding your hand now as—

I am not you, though I am,

I do see your

Face, resplendent— your face vs. this freefall,

eyes open and fixed on you, &

everything is falling now, has been for ages,

wallowing and lost in the stars, &

look! Look at me,

you see that

I am you; that I am flesh and blood,

crying because of this &—

come, let me feel you…let me stroke your soft skin &

slight 

touch

(of kiss)

and lift…

allof you up, &

fragments now,

approaching dream.

The Valley

My Love,

My friend, I am patient in pursuit of you

I will not falter in my pursuit

In your ways guide me

In your ways please guide us

My love, you will cleanse my heart.

My Love,

I am forever aware of your mystery

I look for you always

Somewhere I will find you

I pray I will find you

I yearn for you always in the abyss of my heart.

My Love

I pray you will come to me as I fade away and tears run downmy eyes

Therefore come to me my love

You are of pure light like unto the living god

I seek you with zeal and the thirst of desire

I look for no one but you.

My Love

I have no desire but to be with you

I labour for you endlessly in my life

I ardour for you so I may drink the sweet honey of reunion

I’ve tasted the cup of your love and cast away the world

I do this all for your presence and for your love.

My Love,

I am a stranger on this earth

In every place and region where I dwell

In every face I seek you, my friend and my saviour

So I may inhale your traceless fragrance

Let me be dissolved in the flames of your love.

My Love,

I burn with unquenchable fire for you

Always I desire greater sight so I can be closer to you.

I am a lover of longing

I fear nothing because of you

Though I cower in the face of your judgement.

My Love

I will navigate with love and truth for you

Only protect me until the end

I give up myself and am as naught for you

I am a stranger on this earth, therefore guide me safely

Guide me safely to you.

My Love

Purify my heart

Protect me and give me strength

Make my soul a bird so I can fly with you in the unknown

Shield me with all your strength

My God please have mercy on me.

John

My God, thank you for giving me life

And for bestowing untold grace upon me— so that I may see

You scorch my heart with eyed embers of welcome summer,

Moving onward— in the sandy hollows

Of the heavenly ones silent footsteps, surrounded by

paradise—

Grazed leaden in borrowed jeans, making brief light of the

world complete

Like ones own bed abreast the bewilderment of beating life,

Safe in the denim pockets—

Cycling to the earth’s melody now…

Raising beauty’s birdsong with grecian arm—

Pregnant notes that settle in the

Calm pools redolent of the first storms fury,

God bless you forever, blessed child of heaven,

Star-ordained rebel, breathing the fading landscape,

Tilting your rugged crown—

He who doesn’t know his own beauty—

I’ll be coming back for you, be all over soon

We’ll swim out, beyond the horizon

Swoop like larks in the unknown

Arise at morning.

Winter Carrion

There are some among us

Given into the darkness,

Who feast on the light

And know it.

And yet, beneath the darkness lies this same light

Of which they are but corollaries

And made of it.

Darkness

I wait for you in the darkness

You who watch among the myrtles,

Ravaging my heart with fire.

Morning Birdsong

Who, who!

Who are you?

All song has gone, though I am still here

I still drink from this break of vernal light,

This chiaroscuro of delicate life

Blessed with fecund, flaming breeze

See how you fill my dying heart

With words of sweet ambrosial union

I do, I do…

You!

Lilted receiver of all I ever spoke

Lilted redeemer of my desperate flight

My love is your truth

Undying.

Evening Birdsong

Who, who!

Who are you?

I have waited all my life for you

Devouring myself in this numinous apex,

Prayed for you to cool my sweating brow with your

touch

You!

You who I do not know,

Let us drift into bliss

Where we can share in the sun.