Age of Sh All | Mark Goodwin

Spring gathers on (an) England. Onto ground’s wintery etch, onto lettery tree-shapes. Spring’s green fibres flock to this twig island. Or is it a th rust? Does the tracery of Isis – veins & photosynthetic ghost – come from within? Or fall upon all us En   glish to grip? Someone long ago … a version of me and a version of you … played Pooh sticks with An(^gle)land-shaped twigs set … myths & histories afloat on a … glowing liquid. And watched them disappear beneath a bridge of our ageing, and reappear again in this later light. Old man me, and old woman you, old boy, old girl. That cross hung in our sky, that’s not Horus, that’s … purely a kestrel – he’s not fucking wind, no, he’s being feeling place. Yesterday I peeled off from my face such a faint skin and the whole faint skin of my body came away with it. So quickly May is here again. And. Again. And the nursing home that’s England’s dappled lanes has coagulated as a cloak for un-dwelled selves. Us. Perhaps. And. Look, and listen, as you cross the rumbling roads, to get to the quiet abandoned building in the woods of your life’s end … look and listen as some War-wick-shire poet’s body of words rips-&-mangles … yet the body’s bits cling to A/the blade of change. No. No En gland begins, begins all over again. Again over all be   gins, beg   ins Engl   ands.    No change of blade.    No !

This prose poem introduces ‘shall’, Mark Goodwin’s collaboration with film-maker Martyn Blundell:

Blundell’s ‘Convalescent Fade’ extends the dialogue with this now-demolished environment. Click here to view the film (with a written introduction by Mark Goodwin).

Mark Goodwin’s fourth poetry collection, Steps (Longbarrow Press, 2014), explores themes of climbing, walking and balancing. Click here to visit the Steps microsite for extracts, essays and audio recordings.

Martyn Blundell is an artist and film-maker. Click here to view his other short films.

---