Visions of Orion Poetry

Larkins Rolleiflex

Monica Jones: Photo ©️Philip Larkin Estate

Larkins Rolleiflex

I know you never intended us
to see those freeze frames;
those ghostly 6 x 6 prints singing
in a diffused light, that glowed
upon damp streets & sentinel trees.

Fussing over the light meter.
Calibrating the mechanics
as she mixed you a large gin,
her angled cheekbones sweeping
the room like gyrating searchlights.

Under the cool cover of night
you took to squinting – far too dim
to see who might have been the less
deceived – from the tall arches
holding court above Pearson Park.

Your eye held steady – coaxing her
into frame, just a whisker away
from deeper focus; light seducing
the polished glass, like a halo
beaming from corner shadows.

©️Orion Foote

32 Pearson Park, Hull – Poet Philip Larkin lived in the upstairs attic flat between 1956-1974.

Gung Ho at The Zeitgeist

Gung Ho at The Zeitgeist

I like the photo that you flung
like an aerodynamic frisbee
through the glow of cyber electrons.
It screams of Ultravox and wild
gypsophila in Grantchester Meadows.

Kids careening drunk through street
lit metal roads, howling like rabid dogs
lost in the brain fog of a 2am dead
zone, after shooting our lot over tables
doused in fire water and ash.
We didn’t know it then, but the river
was always sliding away unseen;
whispering Goodnight Vienna.

©️Orion Foote, 2022

Trouble in Hope Springs

Trouble in Hope Springs

In my own defence pro se,
let me say it’s not a closed case
of cooking the books.

Mining for brain fodder
on the lunatic fringe
is not for the squeamish or tone deaf.

Today I’m picking Daffodils;
watching them litter
grief stricken pages with glee.

Tomorrow, I’ll conjure screeds
of smoke & shadows to confound
the sharpest of freshmen.

It’s a game of two halves;
an invention of private
origami fiction,

cutting a dash
amongst jealous algorithms
and smug life coach gurus.

©️Orion Foote, 2022

Carpark Monologue

I’m beginning to relate to
the liquid pulse of Faure’s tempo:
the persistent hum of words that
threaten to gate crash the show
at any minute with their used
car salesman’s pitch and patter.

I thought of cracking open
the promising Tempranillo from
Logrono and watching that Jim
Jarmusch movie again with the Brie
and pâte from last nights fiasco, until
I remembered I was out of crackers.

But no, I’m saving my cameo
appearance at the supermarket
until things come to a head, as
they always do when you postpone
the whole shebang until tomorrow;
until the wind starts to push and pull.

©️Orion Foote, 2022

Classroom Windows

I can’t remember it word for word.
Not from preface to epilogue and all
points in between, but I know

you would have smiled or maybe
cried; torn out the page and
pinned it to your cluttered dresser.

That poem from your last yearbook
with the glossy yellow cover that you
never held in your celestial hands.

How I wish on every star there is,
that I could recall that one about the rain
spattered window by a word smitten

schoolboy of no more than sixteen.
The one about tiny blobs of rain that
wept all the way down the sodden

classroom window; about how one
might join another and hold on for
the bumpy ride, only to part at some

unforeseen juncture to weep alone.
While others would make it all the way
home together in their slow union, but

mostly I remember the line at the end
about the ones that rolled all the way
down alone—crying by themselves.

©️Orion Foote, 2022

Postcard to Rachmaninoff

Postcard to Rachmaninoff

Her arpeggios are up to
the task, precocious in their
carefully weighted precision

as she segues into the
swelling ache of the largo
with it’s ambiguity of meter.

It’s dissonance panning
across her lobes like 70’s
prog rock in hi fidelity
grinning from ear to ear.

She teases the grand finale
like a well schooled vixen
who’s mastered the part.

Sunken chords bellow
under the weight of wild
digits, spewing their seed
inside her molten flesh.

©️Orion Foote, 2022

At Your Wishing Well

All inside this room
recedes into the blue
of minuscule hours.

Scriabin’s arabesques
have called it a night;
slipped away to ponder

rumours of minted
chocolate—notes of
ripe vanilla that speak
in warm silken tones.

Would it be too much to
wish this second linger;
slowly turn to stone.

Trash Talk at the Presser

Haney vs Kambosos Jnr – Press Conference

Trash Talk at the Presser

Y’all have to wonder about
their affectations of slam champ
and how they get to dish
out the straps these days.
It’s enough to make me want to
dig out my old highlight reels.

The way he enters the ring
all bug eyed with chest heaving,
juiced up to the max with post
modernist metaphors; his tree
trunk arms splayed so wide
he makes the door jambs flinch.

Suffice to say I was doing fine
with my usual ringside pew,
surveying the damage unseen
like some ancient retired
journeyman— until he showed
up in all his charlatan splendour.

Usually I’m good to let things
slide, but if he wants to trade
adverbs, play scrabble champ
with me or start to mess around
with sly check hooks or the old
Money May pull counter, he’s In
for a long night at the local A & E.

Post Match Analysis

Post Match Analysis

If you really want to know,
ask a dying person she said
sotto voce, while
teeming dross bucketed
from an embarrassed sky
outside my kitchen window.
Sweeping diagonally, deliberately
as if to make a point;
cut through all the crap.

While old Hughie pontificated
on the outcome of too many
turn-overs—chances gone begging;
no bottle at the breakdown of
play & let’s not mention the
gutless display in the scrum.
It’s a given that mouths will
explode at the next board meeting.

Perhaps in the end, that’s all
there is to the lamentable night.
Like learning how to mince words
over last night’s lasagna leftovers,
or trying not to mix apples with
oranges down at the old chows,
until you end up trying to live with
what you hoped you could live without.

Foul Papers

At times, splinters of light
might penetrate the darkroom.
Sweeping like liquid; churning on
their solemn trajectory to
mingle alongside my gnashing
cells like silent hues of algae.

Sun-dried and parched beneath
the intrepid blaze of the sun,
becoming finely sated like alluvial
dust clinging together in bolsters.
Only to return under the deep
shroud of night, to lay inert with
drizzled shards and hubris, near
a dark and barren mound.