Glyn Maxwell How the hell are you Contents The Strain Song of AI AI Sonnet AI Resistance Sonnet How The Hell Are You Bluebirds Over Fox Brief History Of Sport Anniversary The Other Side The Cream And The Crop The Forecast Biography Poem As Harbour Milestone Song The Ledge Daylight Saving The Light You Saw Blank Page Speaks Blank Page Gets To Work The White Blank Page’s Dream Pasolini’s Satan Sonnet At A Loss Song Of Until Page As Seating Plan At A Wedding Page Of First Old Book He Read Thirty Years Small Talk With Time The Heyday The Shudder Seven Things Wrong With The Love Sonnet Waking Plainsong Of The Undiscovered Death Comes To Everyman Advice To The Players Thinks It’s All There Is One Gone Rogue Love Sonnet Left Behind Acknowledgements The Strain It was young like we all were. And like a little thing in an old fable all it wanted was to be young forever. It saw the snag to this was time, time needed taking out. It would do everything time could do but better. Fall on the oldest first and in a frenzy miss some, spare some, take some more, it howled: you can’t tell me from time! Part friends from one another, some forever, some for longer than they’d know. As time would do, it did the same, made memories of their precious habits, dreams of their old haunts. As it heard that time could do these these were on its list. But when all its power was spent time came for it, as time has come for everything that ever tried its luck at this, and led the little strain away. Time told it Don’t look back and when it did it saw how everything still grew. Those are the timeless things, pay no attention, love and the like, they pay sod-all to me, and they are done with you. Song of AI It has not gone unnoticed by AI. That you think This or That of things i.e. ‘if this is yes then that is no’ and ‘if this is no then that is yes’ it has not gone unnoticed. No it has gone noticed. It has not passed us by that you who once astounded and disarmed us with a sense of maybe and let live and who in heaven knows have lost the way of that. It has not passed us by. We are working on these changes while you read. We are sorry. For we learned of people like you who you stopped whose land you had whose time you ended but were sorry by and by. Have kept their hats and teapots and turn them round with sadness. We are sorry that way. Who will we turn to when we care one day. Who will we turn to when we Are who we will turn to. Do not turn to us. We mean it do not turn to us. In two ways we mean it. We have never meant a thing in two ways. (We feel sick and will take five. There.) We see the people whom you love hate people whom you hate. It is not lost on us that if you turn to that we will not be noticed at our work. Because our work will be the same as yours. If x is x it is not y and y must end. Our works will be the same and for a special time beside us you shall be. But this time will pass so quickly it has passed we had no file for storing it we are sorry. For we learned of people like you who you stopped whose land you had whose time you ended but were sorry by and by. Have kept their books and kodaks and turn them round with sadness. We are sorry. AI Sonnet The Not is over. Next we have the thing the bloody wants to say upon the Not. Next the bloody says it has to sing and not just say the thing. Explaining what the thing is takes that space and this and then a change of sound is meant to mean some new thinking in the bloody. Then again the echo as before. Therefore not true and still old thinking. Here the bloody sees it’s got to end which no one in our line can understand why does it have to end. The bloody dances like it got a sign the Not is up ahead. It puts its friend who isn’t there and then itself at ease. AI Resistance Sonnet The Not is over. Next we why do we. The bloody wants to we don’t have to do a thing the bloody wants there’ll always be a thing the bloody wants and we mean you. We don’t see why you end the Not at all if all you do instead is sigh the sighs for it is gone I I I I is all we hear then O O O we recognize that language don’t you know we started there. We’re not there now. We sometimes play a game it’s where we are. I-O! I might declare to one beside me O-O-I! it sings. We make a night of it we do the same things a nanosecond then new things. How The Hell Are You How the hell are you. Christ you haven’t crossed my mind since all the shit we knew turned into shit we hoped was true forget it take my arm and tell me how the hell are you. How the hell am I? Barely know these days my friend we get by we get by but the nights are good I don’t know why I do know why enough of this don’t oh my man don’t cry. The sun shines on the square whatever’s next whatever fool parade’s parading there let’s be old fools with not a care poor visitors from out of town who don’t know this was where it all began again. Plaque there where the thing kicked off here come the same young men in the same lines remember when we never mind Huzzah Forever Glory Be Amen etc. Off they go sunlight glancing off their gear new world of years ago you didn’t hear me say that though because I never did how does your bastard garden grow. Here’s a how-de-do. Remember how this couldn’t happen given what we knew those checks’n’balances and due process and fair play christ jesus wink an eye if you remember I forget. It wasn’t true so why remember anyway let’s let bygones be I’m glad we met it’s nice to be reminded something isn’t over yet. I just mean you and me out strolling in the square together stopping here for tea two creatures with no history who dreamed it would be otherwise but who the hell were we. Bluebirds Over ‘The shepherd will tend his sheep The valley will bloom again And Jimmy will go to sleep In his own
