This series of posts is a sequence of poems written between myself and the poet Geoff Matthews. The series begins with a poem he wrote independently of this project, I then wrote the following poem by mutating his original. Each mutation follows no particular rule but rather is simply as we chose to assimilate and reform the material.

Each Poem will be posted with its sequitur so that possible connections can be made, i.e. so this post contains 0 and 1 (the first actual mutation), but the next post will contain 1 and 2 and so on.

Mutations 0 & 1

0      Consolation

don’t hold the knife like that

             the fat man will snatch it

                 and snap your wrist

and then the sun was seen

                an orange tomato on

                   a scabby horizon

Zatoichi hears the knot in

              his assailant’s shoulder

                    renders it string

peacock scream and rattle

               manipulating the park

                    vision to dream

1 Harvest

The brittle straw man sat bewildered,

          by the cream that dripped,

          as he looked wistfully on,

and in the elevator,

          that hoary contraption of descent,

          which floated sonorously down,

a toad’s call echoes from the pool below,

          as the fake antagonist hungered still,

          dreaming of bees,

all this I heard without once moving,

          keeping my eye firmly,

          on the receding highway,

(a hare moves at speed,

          an alacrity of asphalt,

          suitable only for evasive swerves).