Kelvin Corcoran's Lyric Lyric (Reality Street, 1993)

This book is equally divided into two sections, each titled Lyric. Here some favourite passages from the first section:


...the human meaning
out of the dark dream
breathing immediate words.

*

...a door into the river night

the site of deep assent.

*

How can we ever, that carpet,

I shall pin the dumb song moment

familiar shapes inscribe

man, woman, driving home

return me word by word.

And from the second section: 

It's hard enough under this sky

and in all these other places,

lights fixed and moving

an uncertain grid of fields

without a dream, you knew just what,

come out of that open air.

*

That morning cars came out of the sun,

I couldn't measure the speeds,

careering subjects released from rhetoric

smacked up against the white wall.

The birds flip from branch to branch,

their funny watery cries all around

splash and blend in the garden heat.

*

...inside,

the shape of a country moves through us.

*

In blue September between blue blinds

I write and drink, thinking of money,

thinking inside the physical forms of words

for the pleasures of reification.

*

The bright ones learn Japanese and Arabic

running up the walls of banks, shops and palaces,

the rhythm of neglect, step out of it,

through the door, into the house, talking.

You can buy Lyric Lyric from the publisher for a mere £5.