{"id":5628,"date":"2020-03-02T11:06:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T11:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/?p=5628"},"modified":"2020-03-02T11:06:35","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T11:06:35","slug":"chris-mccabe-three-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/5628\/chris-mccabe-three-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris McCabe: Three Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BLOND REX<\/p>\n<p>Blond Rex, what Illuminati confirms a bloodline exfoliating in seats of power, back acne weeping in Gucci shirts? What Illuminati, laminations of Jesus\u2019s face, nominations for shortlists, where money multiplies money like a woodlouse nest? The road to excess leads to the palace of business, Illuminati knows it, confirms, conforms. Bonus Rex in the business lounge, cutting a tape on a social housing experiment, The Groucho at two, Miss Nebraska at eight. Because if it doesn\u2019t grip : cut it; if it isn\u2019t yours : twist it; if it has a mind : fuck it. If it doesn\u2019t fit in the hand, in the bank, in the ass, then corrupt it, spit at its name, tweezer its tiny beating heart until the corpuscle pops. Pour another, take it out to the expanse, put it on expenses, drive it to the velodrome of a golf course, make it play Crusoe at a private pool. Illuminati knows it, confirmed it, forced it \u2013 &amp; behind it all, a camera that was the magi at the birth of Blond Rex, documents its genesis.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>AUTHORITY EXTENDS IN EIGHT DIRECTIONS<\/p>\n<p>Authority extends downwards, a kestrel with a flint in its eye.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 32px;\">Glances over the heads of Trustees, a trellis pattern in the blue stitching of pressed suits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 20px;\">North to the river &amp; the spirit level of the Strand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 70px;\">South. Why not? We all know what happened to Lear in Kent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 20px;\">Downwards, movement at middle management can lead to a loss of claw : a weasel on a pretzel forage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 40px;\">Remember West? The facing wind carries the scent of clotted inks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 15px;\">East is Necropolis, a magic slate refreshes the white lies of Easter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 10px;\">Feel your last hour in the gut? Authority collapses the eight pins of the compass.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>THE BOTTOM LINE<\/p>\n<p>The Bottom Line is a God,<br \/>\nThe Bottom Line is a song that doesn\u2019t stop,<br \/>\nThe Bottom Line is what gets you up in the morning,<br \/>\nThe Bottom Line is a gallows<br \/>\nyou\u2019ll hang anyone to meet, &amp; sure<br \/>\nThe Bottom Line should be met,<br \/>\nbut you can\u2019t make a votive offering to The Bottom Line,<br \/>\nyou can\u2019t make a God of The Bottom Line,<br \/>\nThe Bottom Line forms a grid,<br \/>\nand through it goes the diverted sewerage of a black river &#8230;<br \/>\nthe gates close at dusk, leave by eleven.<\/p>\n<p>WELCOME to this new square mile<br \/>\nbuilt on The Bottom Line.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">Chris McCabe\u2019s work crosses artforms and genres including poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama and visual art. He was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award in 2013 and his five collections of poetry include <em>The Triumph of Cancer<\/em> (Penned in the Margins, 2018), which is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. His first novel, <em>Dedalus<\/em>, was published by Henningham Family Press in 2018 and was shortlisted for the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize. His latest novel is <em>Mud<\/em>, a version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, set beneath Hampstead Heath. His non-fiction work includes an ongoing series of books which document his search to discover a great forgotten poet in one of London&#8217;s Magnificent Seven cemeteries; titles include <em>In the Catacombs<\/em> (2014), <em>Cenotaph South<\/em> (2016) and the <em>The East Edge: Nightwalks with the Dead Poets of Tower Hamlets<\/em>, all published by Penned in the Margins. He is the co-editor of <em>The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century<\/em> (Hayward Publishing, 2015) and the editor of <em>Poems from the Edge of Extinction: An Anthology of Poetry in Endangered Languages<\/em> (Chambers, 2019). He works as the National Poetry Librarian.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BLOND REX Blond Rex, what Illuminati confirms a bloodline exfoliating in seats of power, back acne weeping in Gucci shirts? What Illuminati, laminations of Jesus\u2019s face, nominations for shortlists, where money multiplies money like a woodlouse nest? The road to excess leads to the palace of business, Illuminati knows it, confirms, conforms. Bonus Rex in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[55,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/skull-for-J-box-5.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42xiC-1sM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5628"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5746,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions\/5746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}