Tamar Yoseloff
My poem ‘Belief Systems’ was occasioned by the exhibition The Bard: William Blake at Flat Time House, in February 2020. I was one of six poets invited by curators Chris McCabe and Gareth Bell-Jones to respond to illustrations Blake made in 1797 for ‘The Bard’ and ‘The Fatal Sisters’ by Thomas Gray. Gray’s work was a revelation for Blake, and through this commission he saw a way to begin to create his own complex illustrated poem cycles. Flat Time House was the home of the artist John Latham, who, like Blake, developed a total world view that shaped his artistic practice. Latham considered FTHo ‘a living sculpture’, and the initial notes for my poem were written in Latham’s kitchen – the ‘body zone’ of the house – one dark January afternoon. ‘Belief Systems’ stitches together phrases from Blake, Gray and Latham but is also situated in the moment of the poem’s birth. Storm Brendan was about to hit our shores, and the terrible result of the general election was still an open wound. On my way back to Peckham Rye (where Blake had a vision of an angel) I saw scores of homeless men huddled in the passages outside the station, and a connection formed between their bowed figures and the figure of Blake’s Bard. It seems appropriate that these random sightings came together, considering Latham’s idea that every occurrence is an ‘event’ and that all events happen simultaneously, hence the concept of ‘flat time.’ The poem is a tribute to simultaneity.
BELIEF SYSTEMS
We are absolutely committed to not knowing.
An act of faith it was once called. We put up a guess.
– John Latham
The storm is here. They give him a name.
The wild winds weep, we stiffen our limbs
to a winter with small consolation.
The night cloaks men in ceremonial duvets,
winding sheets, their beards entwining
as they sleep. They might have been
bards or kings fallen on hard times,
that’s what they say, as if time
has surface, a rigid ground
that breaks the body as it hits.
Only events can fling us from our beds.
Events goosestep over concrete.
Events purge words of power,
the gutter press pressed thin against
windows to buffer wind.
Old news –
over before it’s ink. We can only guess
what’s next. An act of faith.
*
We take to the virtual streets, waving
emoji fists. The revolution is on our phone,
the event inside our pocket.
Hours of folly are measured
on Facebook, where cats demand worship,
arch their shaggy backs and hiss,
poomogis run for president,
punch-ups fade into the ether,
the dead update their status;
we tell the cloud our secrets
so it will hold our voices
when we lose solid shape:
nothing we’ve made will save us
from what we’ve razed. When the foaming
flood hits shore
our time is up.
*
The storm collects our waste.
Circuits bared, like maps to nowhere.
Analog screens, their ancient stars
trapped in static. All of it shipped
to Surabaya; farmers ditch failed crops,
sift plastic for gold. There’s profit in junk.
*
The book lies face-down,
we’ve lost our place, the speech
learned by rote but never made.
Not worth the paper on which it’s printed
when there are Trees to Save.
Chuck it on the fire,
we’ll need its blast of heat
when refineries fall into the sea.
The guts of continental bullies
are strung on the loom of hell –
We’ll weave a commemorative quilt
to celebrate our freedom.
The warp and weft of doom
will keep us warm.
*
If we are blame, how to fix our faults?
If we are blade, we’re deep in love with blood.
If we are brain, we’re plagued by tumour.
If we are broken, we’re past repair.
If we are bible, we’ve lost faith.
If we are birth, we’re also grave.
If we are bird, we crow for meat.
If we are breath, we’ve ceased.
*
Through dark open mouths
climbs a sound unrelated to word –
A quaver that skips the stave,
quivering on breath.
The wail of veiled women at a grave.
The scream of falling Icarus slicing air.
*
The book lies face-down,
keeps its counsel. Pick it up
or chuck it on the fire. It’s been here
for years, collecting dust, the author
long dead.
His time was up
but now he takes another shape,
his voice pressed like a flower in the page,
asking us to speak to him, to bring him
back to life.
Just a matter of time
they say, as if time has mass and weight
like bricks – we build a wall each day,
demolish it each night, then
build it up again, brick by sodding brick.
Our stocks are made of air
and spit; they black in smog.
*
The thoughtless world ticks off its inventory:
four births two deaths every
second, eight million heartbeats every
second, seventy-five Big Macs every
second, five hundred WhatsApps every
second.
Four thousand new stars every
second burst into gravity; we know
but can’t see.
All of it adds up to
one: a belief in what we think is true.
*
In the nick of time they say, a chip
off the clock, what happens
before what might have happened –
disaster halted, or simply held
for another day.
Your time is up.
*
The storm grabs what it can –
gated estates jerry-built on fault lines,
makeshift hospitals, highways
carved into crazy paving.
The host of daffs break ground
for Christmas, the blackbird sings
all night, hypnotised by LEDs.
*
The book lies face-down, an open fan,
a cabbage white, or so the poet said:
everywhere, nowhere, vanishing from sight.
His tomb is laced with praise,
his slim volumes are what remain,
cluttering glum shelves.
The book lies face-down. Pick it up.
Text riddles the page, fencing the pure
white field with strokes.
They say the poet spouts a lot of
rubbish: things that are like things,
instead of things that just are.
Things have volume, occupy space.
Words balloon over our heads,
pop in the stifling air.
Full stop.
*
If we are blood, we’re clot.
If we are blue, we’re bruise.
If we are bile, we’re humour.
If we are bind, we’re tied together.
If we are bread, we’re mould.
If we are blench, we cheat.
If we are billion, we’ll increase.
If we are breath, we’ve ceased.
*
No more boom, just bust.
No more room, go home.
No more hands across the channel
once we dynamite the tunnel,
clinging onto inflatable dinghies,
reliving Dunkirk pluck.
No more odes, just prose.
No more love, just lust.
No more meat, less protein –
no sitting when we must stand.
No more time. We’ve run out,
as if time is a tarmacked road
that simply ends – what’s ahead
is unmade.
Better to stay
confined inside our crumbling palace
to seethe and rot alone.
No more milk and honey,
just flat beer. Get used to it.
The storm is here.