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Chris Mansell

A selection of poems

the general becomes

do what I say
and you will be free

do what I say
exactly
and you will be free

love me
and you will be free

love me and only me
this way
and you will be free

vote this way
and you will be free

spend this way
incur & repay debt
this way
and you will be free

you in the deserts
you will be free

follow my lead freely
and you will be free

hate these
fight these
and you will be free

work this way
at this time
in this place
in this manner
without complaint
and you will be free

kill these
and you will be free

wear this
and you will be free

suffer and believe
and you will be free

think this way
vote this way
criticise this way
and you will be free

spend and dream
this way
and you will be free

rebel and wear your hair
this way
and you will be free

lie down lie down
of your own accord
and you will be free

give up all thought
of justice
and you will
you will
I promise you
be free

                                               after a while

                                            an honest spoon
                                         takes an honest egg
                                      each lick sticking to each
                                              last bit of silver
                                       making black chemistry
                                — the cause of cancer no doubt —
                                     and Bernard Peiffer playing
                                  on the hi tech earphones songs
                                           old when I was born
                           this honest spoon with its honest nickel
                                    glowing through  — yep old —
                                       old when I was born too
                            this honest brain sticking to the song
                                 making a sort of night chemistry
                                      and you your brazen fear
                               — yep the cause of love no doubt —
                                          showing through and
                               this honest spoon smoothes it out
                                              like piano music
                                                               yep

Cow poem

it is a day for poetry    that is to say
one like any other    full of sunshine    paddocks
and cold at heart

all day I speak to screen poets
the artless machine gives me breath
and words         and

I am sitting in
a paddock far away    a cow roars out

even I can tell distress from love
in cows
in others it’s not so easy

blue seeps in at the curtains
of my cow-isolated study
I warn it off with words

there is too much at stake
to start loving now

the phone nags
and there only people
I don’t love
they make their demands
time    money    an honest opinion
a dance
I don’t want to hold hands
there is no one whose thigh I want
to cross no particular blizzard eye I want to
capture
I make the print big with fine
resolution
the cow is giving birth
and someone is in trouble     the dairyman
— I know his name —
will come in slow urgent
paces across the paddock
and watch    not wishing
to disturb her   his girl   full of hope in a field
of good winter feed
there is nothing to the print
the page rolls past like a lowing
poets fall off and fail
clipped by time    they thought they were immortal
and not one was
a comet   the size of a swimming pool
glides over and we don’t notice our near extinction

astronomers should take more care we’re not hit
by the unpredictable
again    
she lows in the paddock
and the dairyman — Phil — judges with squinty eyes
it’s a matter of economics this love
I write cheques
to poets     petite commercial haikus of trust
it must
be the end of the financial world
the mail drips in
another poem comes reeling up   this is a bluster
of words
high as a blue sky the cow says
and Phil     the master cowman    strides over the field
of the poem    there is food for thought in this green
poet
he takes the cow by the horns
and speaks to her in low tones

then he grasps the calf by the legs and for a while
there is an ten-legged beast    his two   her four
and the four of the new
she bellows out and Phil
pulls the legs and the poems come up on the screen   too much
too many poems    and the new beast is born


This poem is for your lips

this poem is for your lips
that with their suppleness made
me grow warm and tremble
and for your breath upon me
that made my body quiver in tune
with you and for your kiss
that made me over come
with delight and your lips
understood my lips and all
my lips could do was take them
and want them more your unbearable
kiss turned all my nerves to metal
all my body to music all my mind
to a meditation upon blood

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