Abrasions

4 postcards for Roy Fisher 

1. 

black helmet blinks trapped eyes into blue life 

keys hang in tangled nets of scarlet thread 

newspaper cuttings & family photos 

animal masks & shredded banknotes 

2. 

head squeezed hard against top edge 

arms raised in triumph contre jour 

the soft distinctions of colour 

vibrations in the visual field 

3. 

with barely discernible pencil lines 

makes edges & boundaries 

to move, to throw shadows 

the unrehearsed gestures of dancers 

4. 

the rectangle creates a portal 

every brush-stroke every splatter 

unconscious memories projected 

into unanticipated futures 

Robert Hampson has been involved in the field of contemporary innovative poetry since the 1970s as editor, critic and practitioner. His poetry has appeared in a range of magazines including The Wolf, tentacular magazine, parmenar, Long Poem Magazine and Rewilding: an ecopoetic anthology (2020). Assembled Fugitives: selected poems 1973-1998 was published by Stride (2001). His best-known work is seaport (Shearsman, 2008). More recent publications include an explanation of colours (Veer, 2010), reworked disasters (Kfs 2013), and Covodes 1-19 (Artery Editions, 2021).

Copyright © 2024 by Robert Hampson, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author