Poems by Richard Parker

My DPhil thesis dissertation is entitled From Utopia to Paradise: Louis Zukofsky and the Legacy of Ezra Pound and deals extensively with Pound and Zukofsky, particularly regarding their late oeuvres. Much of my first long poem/collection, from The Mountain of California …, was written as I finished my dissertation, and many locales, themes, and figures from that work are also included in my collection. Likewise, the collection was completed in California during a reading and consideration of the two West Coast–based generations of American avant-gardist poets who followed Pound and Zukofsky, many of whom can be read clearly in the work. The || caesura break things allow the subdivided long poem to be further subdivided, hopefully encouraging all of its constituent elements to exist in various different ways at once.

I am currently working on three associated projects: R.T.A. Parker’s 99 Sonnets about Evil and The Trav’ller and the Defence of Heaven, which are both near completion, and Æsthetic Theory, which is spezzato. The first is an extended meditation on the work of Herman Melville, most particularly the Christlike and disastrous undertakings of Pierre in Pierre. The Sonnets attempt to address such problems in the light of a cultural and moral (perhaps specifically British) milieu much changed since the mid-nineteenth century. The Trav’ller and the Defence of Heaven is a long narrative science fiction poem and Æsthetic Theory is an essay at an ecstatic aesthetic autobiography.

from R.T.A. Parker’s 99 Short Sonnets about Evil

lxxxii. Trader on stock market —

Let’s trade  |  our sent  |  iments;
Togeth  |  er we  |  exchange
Our in  |  sides, our  |  intens

Ities  |  up &  |  over,
Freaking  |  jazzing  |  all the
Way up  |  Nutbush  |  & out

Over  |  the tow  |  ers: we’re
Immor  |  tal ex  |  changers;
Wish we’d  |  fall for  |  ever.

lxxxiii.

Must we  |  ever  |  dream thus;
Separate?  |  In chem  |  istry.
Now the  |  world can’t  |  end with

Me &  |  you, me  |  telling
Your sharp  |  beauty,  |  & you
Permit  |  ting me  |  or not.

lxxxiv.

After  |  a day  |  I saw
This girl  |  & my  |  heart leapt,
Her skin  |  clear as  |  of old,

Though not  |  so clear
— &  |  we walked  |  through the

Barric  |  cades thought  |  less
Stupid,  |  our strong  |  vitals
Exchanged,  |  our plaint  |  ended.

lxxxv.

With the  |  mountains  |  around
We’d have  |  planted  |  nameless
Flowers,  |  or our  |  own selves

In the  |  frozen  |  loam.  Strain
Of my  |  eyezes,  |  planchant
Sighses  |  of trains,  |  of the

Hero  |  ic cunt  |  y cunt
That brooks  |  no turn,  |  that’s cut
Off from  |  us &  |  our selves.

lxxxvi.

Bold cops —  |  in grey  |  morning
Early  |  how I  |  bestrode
You — how  |  your boots  |  & your

Yellow  |  hats are  |  one with
My slight  |  cómplaints.  |  In a
World quite  |  different  |  from this

Wouldn’t  |  we dance,  |  meet at
Gatwick,  |  combine  |  our in
Timate  |  selves o  |  v’ragain?

lxxxvii.

Hi He  |  rodo  |  tus!, swift
Rivers  |  never  |  stepped in
To you.  |  At the  |  end of

Things you’ll  |  remem  |  ber the
Past streams  |  as if  |  they were
Something,  |  as if  |  not just

Undreamed  |  further  |  but that
Dreamful  |  pasts were  |  stolen
From you.  |  Life — it’s  |  over!

lxxxviii.

& is  |  always  |  so; a
Bitter  |  pill, one  |  to swelln’d
Succumb  |  — let me  |  think, I’ll

Tell you,  |  — powers  |  decline —
What I  |  mean — where  |  I’m from —
There’s no  |  end to  |  m’intense

Passion  |  for you,  |  but then
There’s no  |  begin  |  ing, like
A ri  |  ver cold  |  er flows.

lxxxix.

For those  |  who a  |  ttempting
To do  |  good find  |  themselves
Borne  |  relent  |  lessly

Toward  |  evil:  |  who a
Ssoci  |  ate de  |  scision
With per  |  sonal  |  ity —

Each turn  |  suggests  |  a wrong,
Many of  |  my wrongs  |  persist
In what  |  I did  |  do too.

xc.

& Niall  |  Fergu$  |  on on
Channel  |  4; a  |  twat, &
On that  |  Dresden  |  made for

‘Allied  |  payback’;  |  & that
Of course  |  command  |  econ
Omy  |  -Social  |  ism

The root  |  of all  |  evil.
And you,  |  Niall?  |  Where’re
You on  |  your scale?  |  And I?