Emery - Dr. Mephisto

Dr. Mephisto Dr. Mephisto Chris Emery London published by salt publishing Dutch House, 307308 High Holborn, London WC1V 7LL United Kingdom All rights reserved Chris Emery, 2002, 2010 The right of Chris Emery to be identied as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with Section of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 . This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Salt Publishing. First published by Arc Publications 2002 The electronic edition published by Salt Publishing 2010 Created by Salt Publishing Ltd This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 978 1 84471 529 9 electronic This book is for Jennifer, Callum, Kirsty and Cameron Acknowledgements The author is grateful to the editors of the following publications, in which some of these poems, often in earlier versions, rst appeared: Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry Review , Jacket , The Poetry Kit , Quid , Recursive Angel , Salt and Semtext . I would like thank John Kinsella for his encouragement during the writing of this book. Keston Sutherland and Andrea Brady at Barque Press for publishing The Cutting Room , where some of these poems rst appeared. Thanks also to those who offered support for these poems, both editorial and personal: John Tranter, Richard Caddel and the late Doug Oliver. For this new edition of my debut collection, I am also grateful for the decade of support Ive received from my publishers at Arc, Tony Ward and Angela Jarman, who remind me what it is all about. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.

The Pendulum Mephisto practised his incantations and eye contact, wiggling in his bonds. His frock coat stained. His top hat dented. Assistants fussed about the knot. Then suddenly, pok! thwack! the trick came off. The upturned udder of the stool lay in the mud.

A little bouncing around, not quite a jig, but a dance Id say, nonetheless a shivery foot the last thing to settle down, like a black tongue. One brogue fell off, plonk . One eye looked a bit tired. Tick, tock, the raggedy body rocked and pirouetted. Folk shrugged shoulders, cupped hands and lit up. No one scratched their arse or scrubbed a hat to shift an awkward itch.

Mephisto took everything in. Hed studied regimented goings on like these for donkeys years. The white air cleared and stilled about his face. His features went turnip-coloured. Some awkward gasps reminded him to get a bit of exercise now and again. One engineer joked about a cold snap.

Another, about making a clean break with it all. The air smelled of cabbage stalks and diesel. All around, the audience declined to comment or disperse. It was depressingly banal. Moleskin coats, berets and helmets, some neckerchiefs daintily tied above the glinting imbroglio of eagles wings and chevrons; they tootled about in the half-toned, moon-faced quackery of the side-show. The cold street turned whiter still, tank tracks glistened beside the provost marshal.

Some picked uff from pockets, bored apostles of the mesmerist, and then checked out the knackered stool again. The rope. The gibbet. His eyes. His prick. The Gift I was there, so I was, Doctor Mephisto incarnate, im-am artist for all the inveterate sinners, kiboshed for once, but my spell had come right and severed this waifs artery, the femoral as it happens, and I was breathing, hoo haa , her hot breath into mine like an old bellows.

Not exactly resuscitating you understand. Anyhow, her breaths were misspelt novenas of the esh, plush organs decked out on the slab, whistling away towards the ripening shade and ticking shadows. So there I was, perdious notion, clearing up just as the boiling cerulean and fancy, crop-demented wavering of it all started to cascade. So much care in the deep stains of purgatory, her quim all shimmer as the cloud-shadows crossed my old gaffe. My sharp-tailed boys and those grandiose banisters of ame descending and descending would it be, blistered and inconsequential? Asphodel, Astaroth, Asmodeus... their icy gusts tinkling there, the garlic and rape commingled plains of ice, some animals farting about too, brusque amid a freshly judged crop.

Mephistos familiars belting off, each by each a botched grimoire of muddy fur and scarlet. The air cold as lignite or cadmium and the starry futures just ssures in the plateau, leaking under a black sun. See those bitter scallions of old fraternity or comely dreamboats with their ashy, tar-besotted skins all mission and urgency. Then the teak-coloured glazes on wilted torsos, the laughs Id had frozen there too, contra mundum , before my bored smashings and wastings. Her mitred smile outlasting my gift, and those heads here, swimming by, or piled like rockeries, or strewn like cobbles Id say, yes cobbles I passed over once in a while, tracing the path back to the absolute beginning of I dont know when. The Levitation Theres no shame in it, its just a hefty contraption of wires and boards, some snide magic from Eliphas Levi and then, yessir! Next thing, I dropped like a leather satchel on the boards.

Kerplonk! The whole fabric shifted and shuddered and one hell of a kerfufe ensued, until dust settled on the footlights and I realised Id attained the seventh degree of concentration (once again) or had my head stuck up my arse for a laugh. Theres nothing to it, I said, a few tugs on the old poker and Im as right as rain, just give me a minute to set myself down. Then some joker asked to see the whole thing over. Im bored with the whole shebang. Its no use farming out miracles if Jansenists like you dont appreciate the task. Watch With Mother d be all you could grasp of magical invocations, no bleeding metaphysics for you.

I pulled my gut in, hoicked up my kecks and took a few steps towards the wings. Bollocks to the lot of you, I said. Come what may, the puck of your tongue and the ange of your head will keep you amused for centuries. Alls language to you, no guessing who fabricated that, more zoo than rue , Count Ugo-fucking-lino. Anyways, my tricks would have to wait awhiles, the pulleys were squeaking and those folk back there in the Theatre of Hate would have no truck with the scenery of this sad lot. The whole apparatus was hackneyed mock-Egyptian, and I guess it was then or thereabouts I realised the moral fabric of society was a bit of a jamboree.

A ne misleading supper dance of gammy denigration; and the soulless path Id taken as my own through all the sorry acts, was just a right song and dance of ports, pubs and warehouse nights. Take that time Id risen like Horus over the gorgeous chitterlings of a weathered crowd in Minsk. Id rogered the cunts senseless before the curtain dropped. I was gazing back at my long impervious retinue of shadows, of burning elds and books, of cobbled paths of muddy skulls, the balsam of calm in some cell where snapshots of biddies formed an abattoir of grief, or that verdigris on kids in the bloated rivers, when I began to itch once more. Stiffened in sunlight, my words stuck in my craw like a viaticum. It was all a load of self-serving muck and ruin, my time had been and gone, all thats left was a wincing at the vaults impeccable maths, the bending goddess spurned for string theory, no magic in the frippery of these tired bowels.