Andrew Taylor Poetry

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Despite Certain Constructions from the Gene Culture Exhibition, part of the Liverpool Biennial 2006.

Despite Certain Constructions

Mirror reflecting optics

from a lifetime past

share familiar streets

with returning students

Electronic birdsong fifty minute programme

that magpie click click click…

A joining nature our weakness the smell of roadkill

masked by trepidation an inability to register birdsong

somebody was in a pod of the London Eye slightly smiling

waving and mouthing what appears to be my name

In Camden Town she runs with beauty

in the night shadows offer scant protection

against congestion gathered to leave

head north Acton escape route

in my brand new suit

parked headlights scythe

coastal forecasts bound

virginity at Dawesbury

Watch the Euston train fill the platform Keith Harrington

diesel smoke locking in under the canopy

the buffet car a pile of free newspapers

It is upon this unity that our continued existence depends

trapped by my own incontinence of pride

Estuary birds echo through the bay and shadow lands fall

Light points upwards from the Liver Building

and somehow shines

like summer

A rainbow is manufactured

in a construction hall at Cammell

Lairds on the banks of the Mersey

Rhiz Bar Modern Vienna traffic streams down streets

through tall glass trams get priority reflections "is my lipstick straight"

We talk of landscapes memory and urgency

real flowers resting on cast flowers

Marshmallow Overcoat combined living

quarters studio space the 86 careering

towards Parliament St and Smithdown

Sunny single pain killer shopping centre

glass in need of decent public art

Get lost in birdsong

Bangor Cathedral lighting candles taking pictures

while all the time the ‘Cathedral’ poems sit in your bag

How many times have I stood

and read ‘London 179 miles

Holyhead 85 miles’ not thinking of

it as significant ?

Blue room story spills like summer’s tears

Dream spiral atmosphere he sits with

Catharine St behind

Cold still air city stands behind walls

while on the river swans paired

reminds me of Old Hall Street

Export House bathed in afterglow

The straits seem somewhat transcendental

Granite supports weathered by tidal years

Hanover St teatime bustle 'The longest bar in Liverpool'

remembering the Dillon's days propping up the bar

69A overcoat a sign of the times

655,000 dead in Iraq. An even bigger sign of the times.

Alleys awash with memory

Stockists of non-square sounds since 1971

Designed to withhold impact from stray birds

Liverpool here you are thought of like no other!

leaving Billy's in the shadow of Little St Bride Street

sweating after Karl's madras to discuss art and Marx's

philosophies respectively

Ray and Julie arrange to meet in the Everyman Bistro breathless together

at the end of the night

the nuclei exploded and a new world began

Friday faces The Blue Nile oozing from the Third Room

deadhead roses in Waterloo remember

spontaneous snowfalls

Shadow etching figures black metal lined up on the South Bank

strangely Parisian like some kind of midnight walk by the Seine

freedom like a migrating bird roosting

I am not an architect despite certain constructions I build my

twin tower of destruction motionless revelations

Bird song sneaks through early morning traffic rarity

Words etched onto sidewalk. Late summer’s heat

unable to soften Buddleia columns run parallel

Actual day ends the Junction dusted with

sadness tracks coated with diesel

Ready for Deva

bird-noise in-between Heathrow jet roar

Light cast reflections mist loaded canal

Ripped posters flap in an Arctic breeze Frank

and Mia masked in Wood Street

Slinks along the river path to Raleigh

how that would bring cheer down the icy blast of Bleecker Street!

tide swirls warehouses turn into bars cranes

A soundklash of sonic guitar rock

disco-tek punk underground hits

and lost classics…

Bold Street shop curry ingredients

Red Stripe fridge chilled

Williamson Square devoid of its soul and now devoid

of Superlambanana

bird peering over my shoulder

out to a sea unfazed by the wind

Eggs Benedict Washington Square diner

6ts beats garage psych r&b

It’s like trying to catch rain drops

with a fishing net – the mesh

gets wet with the substance of rain

and you also shine like a Morse code message

Lodge respite a place to renew with newspapers sanity

and scalding coffee

Paper returned on request from Euston

Through fields along the brooks of WADACRE

everything flows

Camels on the Mersey Elephants at Lime Street

This poem was part of the Gene Culture Exhibition at Slaughterhouse 73 Gallery in Garston, Liverpool, curated by Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney and part of the Independents strand of the 2006 Liverpool Biennial. The exhibition ran from October 10th - October 29th 2006. The context for the poem was to provide a text (cut-up) from my poems and offer interaction, through space on the exhibited poem, with visitors to the exhibition. The italicised lines are by the unknown collaborators. Certain editorial work has taken place due to illegibility.

Cathedral I From Cathedral Poems

September. A new season, start to the year.
Students settling in rented accommodation.

Cathedral Close three storeys, baring the brunt of
the river's breath. Weakened sun, tower sends shadows.

'Visitors were beginning to approach the Cathedral through
a tangle of urban decay’

Gambier Terrace blocked by leaves, not yet yellowing.
Triangle of streets, spotted with cars.

Scott's vision, integration. Isolation on the Mount.
Washington Street, inspirational gateway, past.

'Many people do regret the passing of the grassy slope
down to Great George Street’

Cranes angled against dark Autumnal skies. Familiar
to office workers city-wide. Horizons change monthly.

Sighted from lines that run to Lime Street, from across
the water. Embedded in minds as firm as the rock below.

Skyline From Turn for Home

Picture postcard Mersey bobbing
Winter sun casting shadows
promenade laden with joggers
and dog walkers taking the air

Backed onto railings peering
across a skyline that I long to
share spend spare moments with
you wandering along the edge

hand in hand stopping staring
out beyond the bay catching the
breeze following the flight of
sea birds without a care

I Know You Cannot Hear Me Because You Are Faraway At The Speed Of Sound From Poetry & Skin Cream

I suspect there will be more.
More times of ceiling staring,
of counting and silence before
the power button is pressed.

Like the silence that Sunday
morning. Before I See Monsters
and the phonecalls.

It goes beyond the Thursday
rituals of aftershave and driving
and the visit to The Royal Court on
22nd January 2004.

It’s now like flags on the battlements
of Welsh Castles and the tracks of
childhood through Conwy.

And what about the candles? Lit
city-wide and Europe-wide. They
linger, the flames, never to cease
in the shadows of age-old Churches.