Four Chance Operation Poems

Caroline Stockford

[A selection of Chance Operation Dictionary poems in the style of Jackson McLowe and John Cage, by Line Ford (Caroline Stockford), 2018. All words chosen at random from Hony's 'Turkish Dictionary', 1946.]

Wealthy carbines

Absolutely alone like turquoise satire
the lie fermented and became purple.

Fire-worshipper grieved his advantage,
feigned illness tyranically,

tame-trembling a solemn dance
in your shower of rain.

Yield rank to the sheer noise of a drop falling -
the colour of a crane's eye.

To cry at a stranger
with your thimble of personal honour.

Fine-drizzle individuals
full to the brim without pain.

Yellow raspberry turns chrysanthemum
on the silk tissue of her branded plexus.

Glances of a midnight water lily,
ingot of silver.

Cutwater taxicab

Surface purity who breaks the enemy's ranks
collision fixed star the end of an hour.

Soap-maker 'you've had a lucky escape'
pure butter, coins, eventually sweets.

Sceptical frontier, spread out and down
to freely lie at full length on the ground

become cool, yield, grow fat.
Divinely inspired books that poison sky heaven.

Cutwater taxicab's triumphal arch
derides the obscurity of language.

Drill-book perfect, gradual retrogression.
Climb with the claws, tombola, hiss like a goose.

Exactly like banister tinkle, attention to a sick man
talisman rick of wheat, teetotum field of fire.

Nebula of the eye

Automatic Omlette dissolved by Narcissus
as premeditated candle power imitates a poem.

Quieting Pole Star, panting and integral
strips power of argument, shuts up and bleeds.

Feline midnight Darwinism ends a private poem,
gathering time conceals the technical help of God.

Half-closed occasion barking a mere skeleton
sweetness & horror in a curved alpaca coat.

Black coffee without sugar and shoes

He left her, faded by the ben-tree
in chocolate-thick undergrowth
surrounded by votive horses,
a well-pastured doe.

Question one another, they never do
he cools, she longs, good luck boils over
on Antiquity set in a firm, solid grave,
crystal cut like diamond, bright souls afraid.

Speak indigo-bethrothed like even, smooth thunder
your satisfaction narrative, cooing like cinder.
My reply like a cowbell,
blackened through the hatch.

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Caroline Stockford is a poet, essayist and Turkish literary translator. She's working on her first novel whilst living by the beach in Wales. She speaks Welsh, French, Turkish and English and is a big fan of MacLowe and Cage's work.