a poem about bread

Thursday 20 May 2004
Led by recent events in Iraq and Gaza, this is the first draft of the first poem I've written in a few weeks. I channelled the various things I wanted to say through the lose theme of 'bread', which will be the theme of the forthcoming 'per verse' poetry night in Manchester, whether or not I get an open mic slot. The other elements that went into this were the psychogeography of Iain Sinclair's 'Downriver', and a recent Channel 4 documentary on the Roman destruction of Carthage.


bread

we cd make bread from this demolished flourdust ruin scrape powder off th faces of living + dead mix with fat water sugar + yeast bake swollen bricks

when the romans burned carthage th bricks glowed white with heat + fires took days to die an oven that burned itself to ruins

i'll grind ur bones to make my bread tank shells helicopter gunships jack the giant killer pretends to slit his own belly + grain pours out david grown gross + angry turns slingshot on himself th giant wont be fooled steals jack's grain + slits his real belly

brickdust rubbledust children carried white w/livid flagged legs head stomach flapping arms bodies in th street rescuers pinned under fire

from corner to corner ditch to ditch holding back intestines lk heavy oiled dough making for home follow th smoke

(c) matt dalby 2004

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