STARKNESS FALLS

‘This is a book just the way I don’t like them:

scattered and with no architecture.’

                                        Stéphane Mallarmé

 

it will be it will be
starkness falls starkness falls
falling starkly falling starkly
scorn in clover the north car
to fretworking park thisness
the zine prose shame on each
dug duggier and every went
the most dug analytical while
than wish rung the grammar got
didn’t ought to good got going
see you shimmy were all got off
does as shimmy and flamed the
is but starker night out starkly
it will be it will be
starkness falls starkness falls
falling starkly falling starkly
first stop mown uncouth parts
lawn to dishing into the proofs
the dish as is cue schematic
x is one that’s as dogma is
a real dishiness come again
turned tresses the real lamb
the cartouche can but stupor
turns achingly done to larks
beautiful say so the pall star
fall out starkness shot to starkness
it will be it will be
starkness falls starkness falls
falling starkly falling starkly
over the drone bird to nail
minded network smouldering
ooze south central grant screeds
ash the clearings to stutter still
star curst dudes dew plaster
sew white hyphen calls to cusp
here and here and embrasures
stewing in trails in which take
saying hit on that the taker falls
time to the stark a felt starkness
it will be it will be
starkness falls starkness falls
falling starkly falling starkly
laugh to pale one fell swoop
hard shoulders this is a case
where should of violations
do glacial ire the goth skip
paling scene shudderings
blazers are do nice detail
as who purrs spar most of
then again the rest park
simply dated as the rest is
and sewn stark sheer starkness

PYLONS & PRYAMIDS

‘It is

difficult

to know whether

the appearance of

the columns was responsible

for this word-play, or whether the

word-play determined the choice of capitals.’

Jean-Louis de Cenival, from Egyptian Architecture.

 

ridges

of tone work

reinforce concrete

stone against absolute mud

ruined capital in the brick shithouse

said pharaonic party back to slavery classes

continuously bound to sky rock the sun how narrow

courts become machines for dying in the pillars pink hewn

through flood planes tombs for myrrh and pylons on pillaged land

a grim staircase in shifts the necropolis of unsung labours upon a dead song

 

axes

of light pillars

best lend themselves

the palm the papyrus the lotus

colonnades in floral homonym a choice

plating on the facade column its fine white stone

giving representation to the sistrum plated golden cliché

how glitter sheds mystery then blunders into its slavish theatre

one more niche setting for finer face torus moulding and florid plurals

concave cornices ghosted by ribs of palm the beams down channels of flesh

 

timber

scaffold gone

no question of lebanese

cedar for stucco on workhouse

sans foreign aid rosewater compound

its migrant perfume expendable so cost cutting

corners off diagrams a blind door in limestone scars

pointing to exact hardness in the graphic roof of extraction

as all but mean structural weaknesses become mere archaeology

mark the desire for economy and its swiftest uses as the cheapest human

BLUEPRINTS & ZIGGURATS

‘whenever we find architectural construction elsewhere than in monuments, whether it be in physiognomy, dress, music, or painting, we can infer a prevailing taste for human or divine authority.’

Georges Bataille

‘I have tried to put some poetry into the thing because we are going back to the source of civilization… The bridge and the cultural buildings, the art institute, the Garden of Eden, the cars are all absorbed into the scheme by way of the ziggurat.’

Frank Lloyd Wright on his plans for Baghdad

 
placed in niches under seats for the actors hands
ears unable to encompass a theory sundial blued
harmony down to strain in tetrad and triad marks
the many as in artistic weapons that armed sever
make groundplan elevation as perspective brink
brick earth frame works        
burnt water mould slave  
spelt rains flows chord  
forth slung roots brace  

*

in speed what but
the is matters the
world of is personal
of the not moving
idea wings petrol refined
much obscurity fables predatory
bulges that burglar charter
tallow and larded hides
its harbour bliss mills
spelt plaster volcanic rock
spool petal off blueprints
schemie array tuning spikes
blue blankets singing plunder
Dagon sans skeleton constructs
folly spread spiral diffusion
sonic muddle not banal
vestibule thinking most arch
prejudice of the liberties
collations sweeten trenches bungled
concrete serves ghetto clearance
scuttled rubble starched sewers
populace thus pressed below
stairs the carcasses drawn
and quarters crowned clutter

*

mass gables falling inwards
pinnacle still seen standing
fire the mines flaming
frightful high now obelisk
among the cream ruins
metaphor flayed balcony bars
sketches published blinded graphic
stock jobbers marching levees
that lake still draining
noble Doric butch playfair
citizen go box thyself
merchant cross city shambles
thistles at every corner
supplied with excellent springs
compact blue whin-rock basalt
beds quartzy sandstone smelts
porphyry passing into greenstone
embedded exhibits this trap-tuff
surface mamillary crystal crags
fierce crenellated teeth sprung
arabesques done into tiles
minarets or bigger domes
veins accessible by analogy
the falling water earthed
beached granite tumblers litter
scum supposed from dungeons

                    how villa leviathan

                    is carried away in

                    execution the bled

                    sprits were bursted

                    mains exposures a

                    way with the fairy

                    dentist’s chair sky

                    criterion of gnomic

                    caressing his hand

                    spoke to shout the

                    colour of your car

                    are dark sides and

                    externals so mean

                    voice as colouring

                    be lake of that fire

                    subtle fluids of the

                    plebian beauty set

                    in democratic hues

                    and no slave other

                    to one of effusions

                    but much blooded

                    residence asterisk

                    boiling tritons and

                    nymphs even sand

                    blasting sung trash

*

a prospect of dentils carved to cornice an  
entablature cushion gleaming bed esteem  
for picture gallery in smart media sandpit  
now soft now cool stole from marsh cut to  
the walled apartment stating obvious pain  
as ties made of charred olive or lately silk  
no more but bowshot born a salient angle  
rounded tower engaged to driving wedge  
give teeth a saw say burnt brick mud and  
the mighty law set into towers of the wind  
marbling equinoctial gnomon inclinations  
and left to blow the flanks her Hercules on  
its circus for Venus sat in pride of harbour  
overlooking peaks daubed in tawdry fires  
oak shingle come thatched tuft crossbeam  
scarcely referring to the ziggurat example  
left in the wake of burning scars next thing  
to refinement the bountiful timber yawning  
deforestation ever more as the Easter isles  
show how to triumph over a sustain pedal  
the rock that passes all Ozymandian flares trim
among the spoils of weathering though in fire
baking sun justly named a builder’s friend mist
now tease out salt in chippy efflorescence sunk
gush drop down clay hole
test curl poor soil sort
chin spot vein seed drop
look clay sand wild keep

*

fair feeling from rules
ministry to certain trains
beyond stone mortar chimera
beside pilasters without order
surmounted monstrous pepper boxes
mock fab disgraced kettles
stucco the super sub
rods splashed in ironing
for verd-antique the wilds
mistaken buttresses holding crockery
steel in the floodplain
hymns spelt cursive bricks
lionizing the construction worker
niche cottages for temples
woody dingle motion smoke
throng silver trunks corny
clusters along pegged thatch
wiggy mosses wandering lichen
and decay plain double
lattices flatly arched fluted
glory rusticated of mourning
the whole deep blue
melted away into sapphire
pale cities gleaming champaign

*

then spelt plaster volcanic powder mixes  
lending strength set hard even on water  
look to how slight a light tufa exfoliating  
exposes the crumble to salt eating away  
cannot stand a great heat but providing  
more blush structural booty to placemat  
for wattle and daub the more the worse  
studs and girt all set to shrink once sunk  
rot down courses settles and sags like a  
dreary skin the spoke and human breast  
to be furnished with open windows slash  
sash for preference in the draft dexterity  
hum general thrust merest counter palms  
onto sheerest air all given up to asserted  
maths so enthused by the asses and obol  
what tongue to lash some guilty pleasing  
decking out on top saying the pycnostyle  
is an abomination cold intercolumniation  
bring on the nonconformist spec to dusty  
covers from a heavy shower eating into  
diminished solids the shaft swollen ocular   
laid under the brightest capital a column  
and steps fit to wheel chair access ramps asphalt
on pumice or sponge-stone funding body abounds
honeycomb ballistae marble                       
scorpiones tholepin rubble  
catapultae triglyph scree  

*

one part constituting astragals overhung  
rear porticoes perpendicular giving forth  
the rule for the capitals sent abacus long  
face of the volutes bleeding for warriors  
the short shame let fall into the volumizer  
big hair set to slay in metal head breeze  
recalling the stonehenge spinal tap gripe  
grooved into the projection of an echinus  
bands of the cushions with axes aflaming  
the back line stacks blasting microphonic  
cod modules the gothic miasma here flies  
screen scrapers touching up the red eyes  
till over the frieze all monsters and dentil  
seen plumb to reason in the fluted hi hats  
lion heads purring into the grand reverb  
set to boost a ring modulated resonance  
unto Caesar seas of denim run to mud a  
rock god module blazing the lyric stench  
so curly ringlet dressed Dionysian bloom  
to the golden axe under pyrotechnic sun  
how the modal assemblage warps round  
first phrygian then mixolydian and dorian sunk
but slayers all to its free passage of note stone
set to a plinth slash torus best left out rest sinks
cymatium wormery brush               
architrave trochilus reeds  
acroteria spreads lava  

*

caves gray coalition grottoes
long range shivery dazzle
snow castellated cresting bunkers
done for cool broken
mouldings bow strident helipad
the vibrations shaking Babylon
parking lots for tanks
brick dragons scuttled emerald
roof cross rafters the
Moorish arches and confused
conscripts settled in rude
log huts unsquared notches
vine wild in valleys
ice eternal beneath lasers
rough brown granular surface
houseleek moss and stonecrop
lowly valley for torn
precipice crest crag battlements
desecrate the Gothic trefoil
ornament rapturous chimney breasts
brightly up against deep
Venetian marble staring masses
sunny glade dewy sward
always surgy oceanic massy
green and elastic vigour
spruce or natty grotesque
desolation of sterile peaks
Ausonia thrilling lozenge borders

              grub church news corp in hackistan

              fleet street relocation union mashup

              now marxism for avatars and disco

              a white robe muse fraternity lay off

              brogue nevertheless way to go says

              comrade quip and wanton crank all

              dimples sleek skips now frog justice

              so leave the geese out of it Bacchus

              down tools and tabrets this is silver

              thrills kissing cymbals care of pearl

              ridge all crisp inconstant done over

              the four four goose steps in dérives

              contra beaten box light on spoons

              or what is it in the original Klingon

              indices off the shoulder free breath

              again as the numbers most exceed

              clogs like feathers pumps like mills

              burglar in penthouse phone hacks

              how goes the hoedown on the dow

              these days blue chip stocks reeling

              now that’s what I call redundancies

*

  heard the grubbiest hacks of my class cohort  
  destroyed by soundbites dribbling Hegelese  
  blogospheres doing in focus group pollsters  
  segue to CIA flight Guantanamo connection  
  starring grief bracelets so tough on the truth  
  tough on the hollow-eyed cross-border strike  
  lips sawn in PFIs under the downtown Tigris  
  pigeon-holes passing amid research centres  
  the Hugh Grant eyes Murdoch-lite dossiers  
  crooning cash for arms for honours for the  
  terrorist brit pop combos shredding the air  
  the vats of plonk for millennium oh hot bush  
  city knees up Elizabeth Windsor where’s yer  
  tupperware now some people’s primadonna  
  goes hark the asbo vandal sing this is your  
  45 minute warning this is Ozymandias new  
  envoy scrubber with hand-offs for hand-outs  
  the longest sound bite ever to bite the hand totem
  that felt the shoulder that picked the winkle oiling
  that drowned the migrant worker that fled pager
  the commitment to redistribution this is your smiler
  45 minute briefing chin out to look feelingly screen
  two glossy thoughtless pegs doing the crony casino
  and the name is cheery blur, gloat of gloats dome
  look on my property portfolio and despair prang

*

*

for health care neat dice checking twists  
texture for hotel retail semi-plain for the  
office tight specs now construction crew  
neo-industrialists in prog lime glad rags  
leopard slipper shaker all heaviest raw  
cometh the shredder cometh the beard  
spandex a thrashtastic grunt retro-stonk  
scuzzy perhaps into stray grunge sirens  
alienation’s alienation even self-induced  
disneyland behind this ghosted context  
the low-end sludge tripping out a mead  
dirge as bland as the hairiest megaliths  
and nothing to do with the question of  
ornament or just gassy for Wittgenstein  
a notion of pure architecture in threads  
from shed to cathedral viz peasants the  
mosh pit curious for façade as elevation  
though the wall cast of local stones built  
on no-one’s bone those dwelling locally  
and how else don’t wish the walls down head
to ashes for some foundation salon ruse lung
posthardcore spatialism maquette                 
dactyl brick gargoyle faciatta  
dogtooth ball flower foliage  
no quarter in sky for capitalists and farmer  
secure from robbery arching all composed  
voussoirs even cutting slips figure luminous  
herring bone patterns giving a burnt brick  
frost and rime will pass by unhurt which by  
ancients used vermilion sparingly as drugs  
the malachite green purple Armenian blue  
since spoke to lime proceed dug cinnabar  
coats off Pontic wax shedding tear on tear  
pound with a mortar chalk to madder root  
equalled the leading ways for dirt control  
security starts said entrance to the building  
matting or carpet must be effective to part  
soil and moisture from its coming footwear  
traffic scars adequately sized to handle in  
dot matrix features a heather colour sand  
that and flowers of natron bound together  
failing to observe such golden rules allows  
offending matter to spread round premises  
combining good looks and real functionals  
to help mask soil available as tile or in roll  
with thunderbolts the style carving creases  
finial excluding base pyramid column dole  
settle body load to position over dry room security
concrete floor a most imported polish finish cubical
crockets pinnacles soot                 
quicksilver cymatium pitch  
edelweiss corona pine  

*

long shadows of cypress
blossom the glancing aloes
pale night vision statues
full of dashing waters
distant precipices taking aim
to mingle every opening
gray tint footnote baroque
embosomed streaky green foliage
lances lie smooth sward
moon surface general Orestes
without wings or adjuncts
nothing but stables trenches
rod dagger of passion
but more laconic avenue
lights by channelled mullions
each brick stamped Ur-hamlet
shelves counters clerks grocers
pinnacles of the sugar-loaf
broad shield crested gryphon
proud portals all risers
to electrify its beholder
doggerel doing chalet pagoda
baby fortifications upon bones
soft votary of luxury
houses more than fortresses
safes more than keeps
sculleries more than dungeons
wherever soil breaks velvet
bonnet castellated zigzag monotony

*

epithet raw tint opaque
oriels project boldly tendering
implosive interior all out
something of the kind
gods willing holiday inns
thanks to the sanctions
however back in Babylon
massing bas-relief depicts the
construction and all ego
maison individuelle vast glass
the Dessau spectacles fouled
in flimsy software shock
benign tour guide joins
the pillage partition frenzy
collar embrasure balcony grave
voice breeze and billow
will shiver as looks
diorama and therefore improper
snow will not slip
the Sumerian ziggurat look
this side scud protection
Turkey carpets or easy-chairs
cabbage the best ivy
oak too stiff putty-colour

*

*

MERZ FAÇADE

‘…a head-on confrontation with architecture is attended by underlying anthropomorphic connotations, i.e when “building façade” becomes “face”, “window” becomes “eye”, and “entrance” becomes “mouth”. When we come face-to-façade, we recognize and experience frontality.’

Tom Porter, Archispeak

                    a lion protome

                    perched on top

                    of bank gothic

                    THE BIG A

        Schwitters-ish assemblage

          expanding towards Architektur

                    bits of newsprint     ur-column

              formen im raum               -barn

          leere im raum                       -kiosk

MANIFEST PROLETKUNST

                      down the

                      Spitzweg

   very act of building act fragmentation

                 new valleys

                      hollows grottoes

                      catacombs

                      dance casino

                      deviant caves

                      doll housing

                    shoddy goods

                    qua monument

                    to the THIRD

                    international

                    bonk gawthic

                    autonomy tone

                    theses flaring

                    friendly fires

      PYRAMID AND LABYRINTH

      vietnam follies via korea         -park

      press baghdad destruct            -skin

      Luigi Moretti pasted into         -peak

      watergate apartments or          -bark

      the fascist fascia sports -goth

                    SCAR LINEARITY

                    JUNTA NOSTRUM

down on the strip                    gloss awning

 vertical foyer                      glassy firing

                         PASSERELLES

                      MEDIATIZATION

                    DATUM PLANES

                  double strip wave slab

                                          SECTIONS

                                          THROUGH

                                          WAR ZONE

                                          ©APITAL YE$

             gents polemical

             dose scepticism

             clerk bank goth

             strangled mesh

YES-SIR URBAN TISSUE

             helical              OCULUS

             scorch              CRYSTAL

             marks              BEACON

hadrian’s rusticated fringe now showing

                     CREDIBILITY GAPS

       VILLA dancing           club stuff

                             come Sun Space and Greenery

                crown Gun Trace and Tuilerie

chrome Scum Grace Machinery

                 paste                       PUREE

                 plate                       GLASS

                 foyer                       DRAIN

                                      *

                           concrete grilled

                           cheese grate ark

                           dada vernacular

                           do gherkin condo

                           card board civvy

                           street face hood

                           yawns nun burka

                           shoe box shelter

                           warps grid trace

                           ferris wheelie bin

                           jabber eye chintz

                           skate park tracer

                           filing cabinet war

                           tent orange monk

                           egg crate lounge

                             I               II

            O

SOLDIER DUCK

            olde defamiliarization crows-nest

                          Ronchamp

                        a-frame      retro-fit

             flies AVIAN                   hand-stand

             DOWN STAIRS LOO                SLAB

             RENT             smoke stack          RENT

             PERIOD         alley panda           SLOB

     PORCH SKIN WASPS

                slumming it in some style

       manicured eyebrows showing near perfection

                SURROUND          MOAT

                                *

            jarred lawn transparencies

            conical jammed in violent kin

            cartouche balcony or stone

            how they come to get porous

            adapted to rusticate in buts

            ambushed mid modillion sun

            the lintel a tympanum round

            pointy arches in such sorry

            harbours turned colonnade

            a loggia lining semidetached

            ––––––––––––––––––––––

                                *

                        FACE HOUSE

                  huckster           adam

                  palladian          style

               historicist steel toe caps

         Mies in ironic swoons

                            the U-shaped

PIAZZA RES PUBLICA

                                      paramilitary

            ornament                head stocks

            polycrime

   guantanamo

      shell suit stucco

          c/o frozen spokes

               the power-broker                       blobs

                     AFTER AT&T     IN THE PINK

                                   and frog marched kisser

                            inclusion zone

                                       *

                            donut

                            DOME

                      cedar curves

                this defensible closet

                 RAUM

              THIS CELESTIAL SOFFIT

            THIS REDUCTIVE FACTOR

          THIS SWALLOWING SCOWL

        THIS ZOOMORPHIC PROVINCE

                          fondle mint

                  torn U turn

when dark slates roll

            OFF-AXIS URBAN WHISTLER

                                                  mannerist manna

                          shark BIENSEANCE

                              grilles and frills

      nasdaq crawling all over alien labour

               on homo erectus           marble

               bunker-like slits            shades

               plastic polymers            mouldy

               BUNGALOIDS GET GO CHUNKY

               NEO-VERNACULAR DRIBBLERS

HYPHENATION GONE AVUNCULAR

HIGGLEDY              A D                   HODGE

PIGGLEDY               HOC                 PODGE

DUPE CAP                WAD                SHAME

SLIPPAGE                 SHY                 SHEEN

                          POOL HALL

                                         palazzo

                                     pubblico

                                 stitched up

                                           *

                       RELIEF QUA BARN

                    blue bobble HUT

              as per plastic assemblage

                THE RAW        the raw

                      took him from streets

           well lanes        well alleys

                      well shady ways      paths

                         gullies tracks und lines

                            CUT-THROUGHS

                      up the blonde leaf arcade

                          up the back slurry passagen

           ohne dabei minder abstrakt zu sein

RAW LIGHT             Kathedrale of bric und brac

           erotisches elektrischen objets trouvées

                             sing lager strong bow p.o.w. stella

                                     then cut a hole in the ceiling

              give notice to the sleek timorous lodgers

              HELLO DIY GROTTO FRENZY

                                 zzzz zzzz zzzz

THE BRUISE THAT HEIDEGGER BUILT

‘… in architecture it is the visible material, and spatial mass on which the inmost heart itself is so far as possible to be brought before contemplation. Given such a material, nothing is left to the artistic representation but to refuse the validity to the material and the massive in its purely material character and to interrupt it everywhere, break it up, and deprive it of its appearance of immediate coherence and independence.’

G. W. F. Hegel

hacker dwelling meniscus how go liquid just
spans modular thrown open to open plan  
no part in it nor no evolutionary prompts as
that natural that rain yet ultimately social  
will hold great matter of experimentation love
then collective work in its own right how  
united they stand the coop of landscape collects
all easeful living to which spirit answers  
are aspired said chain of endeavour skin interiors
spar did it round the table a wood sickle  
adventuress of native culture indigenous become
and ever so modern fit with it landcapes  
the post and beam construction here then home
kitimat and kwakutl village (fig. 73) new  
spine spire song dies an odd totem pole shutting
the thing ranging playful to premonitory  
the bruise that Heidegger built so tied up every
set to pour concrete image or allotments  
no kin or inhouse engineers according to other
purred concrete slob edges expressed in  
flamboyant canopy adding serene flairs then
boasting to curved doubters to embrace  
thus first ever plastic chairs on autoclave shells
it’s all happening or volume accentuated  
to lozenge shapes ache to massing bulk each
do dominion cities coining in definitions  
mirage on parking penumbra as an only finite
unanimous choice to go go electrification  
to the blast it’s all the same to yes amen elevation
bastards torn through smooth talk medals  
but so promoted into the sacred newness hold
forced far up cry stark oh clean stocking  
as markets proliferated so too modernism shed
annuals donning bib & tucker and giving  
it’s hey ho slinging the beaux pants into skin
a dust bag on on into over-bearing detail  
   
stall city literally bound to margins slang  
ltd. star if liberal attuned euros to scream so
note in transatlantic moults to superbs the  
geographic spray yields high proportions arch
irregular & sloping building lot cum idiom  
from west coast style to entrenchment how its
genocidal mutiny an island of anglosaxon  
field trips even after alienating suez crisis fill
the fruit of the international go local flavor  
all widening a whole field of architetcure of
on climbing frames late of imperial hubris  
landscape dense or lush and majestic barf estates
till remarkably luminous grey light downs  
a figure loot sublime profile of mountain bitter
the hills that Hegel scorned till modernism  
leaving slash bowl for a local poor ethos grows
zip cuts and wound in very barked strain  
a faded gasp of universal legitimacy hark shifts
the grain elevator on oceangoing Empress  
all without irony numen whiter than Ethiop body
the perfection of efficients giving the evils  
stream logged in kinds enslaving to techno and
whereas the lyric fund growls design motif  
spelt out diminished leaves respecting hush soul
dainty but bluff geometer built in the usa  
beaux part cum art deco craft predilictions cutlery
as world war had run the yonk redundant  
stucco upon stucco over the killing shelves how
severs purity further evident in rendering  
God the facade were to kill for so optimum ideally
no fairy castle over a pointy headed peak  
the bridge the shovel the briar pipe to bed crashing
metonymy of pumice in the skirting boards  
he want a machine to live in and less clutter sounds
but still married to the earth works straying  
for want of caryatid to cop off load bearing flimsy
   
actually cramped in standardized quarters firm
draped asbestos ranked statuesque in situ  
its figurate living mind whose nature strolls feet
within the floor area the budget will afford  
pace Mayakovsky’s pacing breath stretcher then
atop a concrete slab laid upon minimalists  
whose song of the box or cupboard draw slippery
drives a coach and fiat through the whole  
will to reside in architectonic vocabularies tops
no bulky buffet arrangement needed here  
later deployed in low brow configurations nature
all hail Ikea and the stripped soul flooring  
the cause economy in light brown parquet makes
strung out vacantly over gypsum lego sets  
till vermiculite sheathing holds each whole no
of resin-bonded wood chips in rigid ranch  
the blue-collar coffee set dreaming a buck bounds
this is plywood world on the verge of mdf  
a legacy of military design in every trainer etc.
slash freedom’s no blank indeterminateness  
how goes it bonnie maid versatile linoleum trenches
under which circumstances a double want  
as a counter-poise to the absolute standing puckered
partly too for something fixed and secure  
feet up on the picture thinking homemaker lips
while glamour steals a march on the bath  
before sitting pretty up on executive foam in
every picture window brought to you by  
technology sanctified in modernist points furrows
yonder the hum of happy wrecking crews  
and the inherent problems of angular form faces
giving way to the revenue view or upkeep  
left to run from elegance to stark brutalism come
hey you stop roaming in empty abstraction  
keep your eyes open for lay Althusserians physic
then there’s the horizontal cadence calling  
   
throttle squall so pulp sentiment pouring  
scorning crisp to home of the year combo drip
raised slab Miesian slotted into rocky crop  
ample gives every bosom high rising utility trickle
if residual neo-gothic articulate in masonry  
was compact but glass block enjoying view down
vista front cast concrete de l’esprit nouveau  
as a model for inexpensive ‘social’ housing harping
as if there’s another kind you house banker  
spreading parks in euphuistical clerestory scam
only the best for patio sets glazed gloomily  
into middling distances where poor folk go how
amid wheely bins spanking tame angularity  
turn up cape cod retro styling to historicos beds
set for cheerful living what is pulls tongue  
the reflex gag in sheer concrete weeping backs
mourns charm suffused torture up and up  
pick the wage scope demanding finer stock rifts
and above all the tree and columnar spray  
showering acanthus over bushy carpet and middling
bring me the head of estate management on  
a plate and talk of sad suits in Bloomsbury even
it comes out on wasp bombers c/o Boeing  
apparently limitless cheap gaz in structural your
minimalism it will do many rivers to syphon  
the feral report source taking hard headed extended
low rise pokey do the multiflex said to be  
the holy grill of prototypical cheap guilded limb
before burnt professional saturation smarm  
forcefully yet amicably like staid intellects for
shuffling up through the mollusc categorical  
as talk of creative energies leaves the room family
spinning in concealed mirth the gauche do  
sparks trend drainage from growing spots kids
tangle torn the elite corps looks down upon  
hovel dance set baking a black polo sweat car
   
      the bond’s as secure though  
  effected by different means  
  for said family on a streeper  
  site a tricellular stressed-skin  
  elliptically vaulted building  
  conceptual variations further
      disposed                                  
    among spills  
    eating    
    bathing staining  
    and    
    sleeping loved  
    with    
    grades parts  
    nesting    
    existing well  
    owner    
    occupied broken  
    foliage    
    breathing parts  
    steely    
    larks such  
    gridpark    
    frames that  
    snoozing    
    through sinking  
    winding    
    wires pulls  
    settling    
  into the raised slab solution  
  in admittedly flatter locution  
  intent in their no less purist  
  pavilions of instinctive glory  
  urging lyricism over rations  
     
      boxy-wood frame and concrete  
  ranged around a modesty pack  
  lately doubled in upon circulars  
  for the more angular deep cave  
  pitching a mythic dog or domus  
  including a special custom fitting  
      graphite                             
    down heart  
    vellum    
    textured spanner  
    where    
    plains fittings  
    depend    
    stimuli buckled  
    expanded    
    volume down  
    therefore    
    moody among  
    respect    
    naturally cuttings  
    setting    
    sublime frosting  
    northern    
    environs each  
    broads    
    bricking killer  
    artificial    
    fireplace cabinet  
    focals    
  the cross-axial kitchen in liquid  
  plane form volume and facture  
  showering the polygonal drones  
  and arcs around a central pool  
  the texture to the exposed wing  
     
      the house of ideas is life as lived  
  use what is there to lend meaning  
  and memo to blend varnish cedar  
  a building should celebrate a site  
  its should as divine functionalism  
  disturbs the natural to a minimum  
      scoops                                   
    affordable light  
    imaginary    
    bank facing  
    managers    
    expendable streams  
    livings    
    reflecting flexed  
    pooled    
    strands along down  
    ruthlessly    
    screened industrial  
    from    
    intellectual cartilege  
    fabric    
    therewith such  
    proletarian    
    golfers privacy  
    televised    
    declining priced  
    locals    
    while to  
    fieldstone    
    hearth die  
    roasts    
    colored for  
    wallpaper    
  growth spoke of as western scene  
  for people not for plants creatures  
  until sold on the golf course circus  
  sing climate milieu technics encore  
  once more puppet imaginary client  
     
      but warned of looming urbanicide
  the trend embraces half measures
  dunked in pure opportunism slurp
  ironically barely captures the half
  acceptable face of countless crazy
  stone dykes in Inca parody stacks  
      spaced                                        
    between prefab  
    living    
    then does  
    sleeping    
    spaced screen  
    between    
    structuring the  
    material    
    projecting work  
    concrete    
    modernism life  
    through    
    class simples  
    dividers    
    tongue your  
    and    
    groove glass  
    sharing    
    laterals half  
    bordering    
    upon full  
    sterility    
  a gambit reflecting military gear
  marshalled among said enfilade
  to spatial freedom where dusting
  the reliable barometer of public
  sky bungalow such unlikely term
  being the wood generated vistas
   
cognitive architecture involves the prop in notes
stays low mental skeletons that don’t vary  
to those most sceptical of its representation screwed
suck in the causal draft buttressing events  
otherwise done municipal verily maecenas to
cometh the pool and cabaña oer the hydro  
as starry fire takes a collegiate gothic look skirts
giving curtains of glass the once standing  
pool of lit ennui throwing up the exposed choked
beam overhanging eave shingle pitch roof  
laughably called for genuine regionalism linen
here plagiarists roam over the old carcase  
rather than patch up a mouldy design tort analogy
bleat bleat comes the all new humanismus  
enamelled till the flush bridles to scholarly masker
decline one time capitalism all but killed  
architecture as a decent profession herald are
tide tilted into breeze block import domes  
talks up ¥€$ down neo-modernismus way joys
head in hand to face the built environment  
simmers over ground once marked to clear in
be concrete dressed in concrete universals  
with Prada conduits well pure Tudorbethan all
while surfer epistemology frankly panders  
you propose simply to drive into the night the
down ghosted script as yer man nearly did  
the house strives to open cities within a city rooms
leaving space junk where the heart was just  
a divorce from context to gather its grooms sifted
en route to Janus or the Jamesonian glossy  
the epithet trade playing a blinder or news through
how the ear is space junk in petrol cat suits  
that’s Devo redux or elephantiasis in Lagos in
all colonial animus ready on veranda decks  
did someone lose a plot on that built fiction waking
well nevermind let’s hear it for scarlet litter  
   
different to the style to begin by levelling  
trees the living tree surely as a fire break play
incorporated into lives as if they had been  
bulldozed cedar turning off the water table areas
tank flowering club toe on autodidact pram  
earmark the million then go a-slum clearing break
dinky & sparky serves the full slate bustling  
doing what cash can’t how evensong fade frowns
rips to cherry blossom here’s ville radieuse
if you could but lash the wood from forests down
of symbol amid how the large sun balcony  
gives forth from tree-screened moonscapes ramp
pilotis of type B over stencilled graveyards  
worth rich natural sluices and panic button lit
the social climate becoming the more social  
every living room in birdsong to waffle cork fords
sacked on blue oxymoron of social housing  
roof for laundry and recreation giving a lie fit
called outside space as if there is cut space  
slash again do unit aluminum brush strokes for
lions over the gate bent to carry favourites  
when the Spartans call asking for protection the
before everything’s synonymous with lowly  
income ghettos how that fell off borghetto usual
to jerry-built plaster over the displacements  
spy the Corbusian trinity of light air & space stress
fields and the surest index to chard gibbet  
option prefab tucked up in reflex low costs woods
repeater sick flowering phased fenestration  
allude if you can to surgical precision plenty build
plywood panel and acoustics bless linoleum  
blunted in a hospital vista all done inside in the
principles on light truss to excessive bends  
but every effort spent to escape institutional budding
even fresh man psych all tomorrow nursery  
it’s a final bleak tuning in greeting concrete boy
   
the concession to civic dignitas was mainly how
structural pillars bringing on the marboleum  
tiled washrooms improve classroom access pink
with stylism absorbed in the loss of function  
the concrete of that philosophy said lovely glimpse
by a thousand pans but lacking whimsicals  
at least new tech school does ultra-modern derives
that electrifying lucidity when budgets rise  
up the sawtooth roof windier than eyes on flesh
spoon fodder for said taxpaying plutocrat  
keen to spanner in an industrial-arts facility from
taking the oath amid the pilastrate so clear  
so forever renounce imitation Gothic rump wraps
the uplift that is iconic dismal turned sunny  
not a mere carpenter pumping out palazzi stained
all hail signor Brunelleschi of the numerals  
how Quinque Columnarum etc bent rules fiery
working up the bill of quantities and rights  
that the territory of disegno expands each dues
field op see Palladio delineated for proles  
sundry vitrifying agents of winged cherub from
marching on the capitol via lavatory/stacks  
bring down spry tyranny of sleek numbers window
so visual qualities suppress formal rigours  
slab climbed an L-plan office high rise yes grace
it said yes to the dance of human portions  
blown on the days of the marble stairwell rippling
skip to the startling tartan of metal mullion  
and transom filled with gleaming opacities even
one more jalousie to ferment the evenings  
not so much conserved as bastardized for thrown
commercial tenants like there’s any other  
expressive universality of abstraction jams spent
enhanced by light shining plexiglass panel  
how factory sash forms clerestories of moon even
accommodating iconoclasm to late dogma  
   
an apse in some belvedere off outer space  
the cat brings in architectures of the visible exiled
a bowl bending mother’s milk and the give  
its thing coming on global so roundly spied from
occular proofs viz tuning typos giving head
show forth the campanile the harsh cyclops its
of the lens bending the bar cone to chevron  
calling A-frames to a temple of baby bonds idea
sewing Abraham’s tent over Factrolite glass  
the residence was all silence all portals shut palace
and the pillars built of white stone via plastic  
don’t talk of bi-nuclear planning or suchlike handles
rapt at the dominion from built-in cupboards  
new stakes in the land radiating under-heat breathe
esp. in the domestic field like there’s another  
pure yet lyrical pavilions shudder it timbers nymphs
now demolished by sticks of fresh tamarisk  
as a measurer of heaps despoils even steers and
as the tongue is some kind of plummet helm  
tales of each Sinuhe with livings and utilities number
shake out the monocline roofing as symbols  
do the butterfly settled on a leaf hype poem shower
taking up the slacker trend hereabouts close  
so close it reflected the average disposables curtains
amid ongoing close supervision in daytime  
a tricellular stressed-skin elliptically vaulted give
lift-slab solutions as cute as an Adam ceiling  
showering the client in orthographic project moulds
the project of which Being spoke so harshly  
where real woodland gives forth satyrs still dating
download brochure to scribe off blue data  
schooled in the idea of two axes and recall give
the architect in most post-Renaissance offices  
defined precisely in opposition to its intimate bold
involvement in the onsite construction process  
freeing something from someone signed sky ruins

EMBRASURES

  here an almshouse there  
  a palladian disability unit  
  baldachino for ciborium  
  and embrasures of within  
angular     lean to
capital     roofing
bloods   care single
capital   shed roofing
block   tree screen
capital   folly framed
cushion     rip offs
capital     scallop
  old style scandal mews  
  in debt to public private  
  injection traceries swag  
  now a pension torus in  
  wall to wall vernaculars  

CUSHION CAPITAL: a cubical capital, also block capital, sculpted to suggest a cushion weighed down by its entablature. A name given to Romanesque church capitals cut away on four sides leaving vertical faces. Bank vernacular for the buffer of liquid assets set off against the haircut value of securities at risk of delay in the realisation of liabilities.

  limit slate loading blurs  
  into cross section beams  
  harming a tense strainer  
  over primed pragmatics  
concrete   bonded
tendons   concrete
serving   fissure
fatigue sleep           papers
scheme sweet          finished
striking stress           untold
buckled curve           labour
tenders   untold
  with it elasiticity ranges  
  revolt to reinforcements  
  to brute grout the stress  
  and pile cap for footing  
  its frames are not linear  

MONOLITHIC ROCK: a confusion of singular stone monuments with built or natural features, or with monotonous heavy rock groupings. Cf. ‘A reinforced concrete structure is a combination of beams, columns, slabs and walls, rigidly connected together to form a monolithic frame. Each individual member must be capable of resisting the forces acting on it…’ Mosley, Bungey & Hulse, Reinforced Concrete Design.

  minus tools at the going  
  rates plus incidentals to  
  the tune of plant to the  
  interest of spent capital  
excavate     trimming
loam sun     of layers
clay dung   ads ditto mud
chalk rock   scar tempering
throwings   each puddling
by shovel   tool clay turf
removing   face stackings
levellings     wheeling
  labour constants as due  
  per cent then reckoned  
  upon reduced efficiency  
  in output as compared  
  to pre-war calculations  

CONSTANTS OF LABOUR: an abstraction figment to average out-turns extracted from labour, and so a ready reckoner ignoring nature, size, situation: ‘The vertical transport of earth has been found by experiment to equal 24 times the labour of moving the same distance on a horizontal plane when barrows are used, and 14 times when horses and carts are used.’ Hurst’s Architectural Surveyors’ Hand Book (1932).

  labour opening to wood  
  work often adds on half  
  more labour but straight  
  double for head of door  
jambs &   framed
soffits & sunk            square
wrought work           the flat
rebated done           denials
grooved   backed
included   per foot
plugs &c   roughed
tongued   edgings
  add if herring-boned or  
  solid at the back if hung  
  folding add if each face  
  bead flushes extra butts  
  giving this ditto veneers  

GEOMETRICAL FALLACY: a disorder associated with delight in concrete reinforcements and left right justification. The confusion of tidiness with beauty calls forth geometrical negation even from lovers of grids: ‘It would seem that the tree is an element essential to our comfort, and its presence in the city is a sort of caress, a kindly thing in the midst of our severe creations.’ Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow.

  Jerusalem stone as the  
  jokers annexe greater  
  their belt of built fabric  
  cladding the collective  
  memory as occupation  
urban   stone
shack hilltop bylaw
roused     phone    newly
shame masts  merely
colony sticks  dressed
drying stones stick-on
amber dishes colonial
  dishonesty to material  
  as its build emblazons  
  the sign of the intifada  
  graffiti engravings the  
  make up now petrified  
     

BEDROCK: a monumental muddle, in our most unnatural history, of metaphorical essence with appearance: ‘the very material used for cladding the expanding Jewish Jerusalem has become one of the most important branches of the Palestinian economy, quarried mainly from the bedrock around Hebron and Ramallah…’ Weizman, Hollow Land.

CITY OF DOGS

jungle seeds house rope stone binding in the burnt seed
the ending expanse imitates the bulge down used quartz
precincts as raised of an earlier wood kept dogs or bolt
sunken square toe form over in grille no more but slow
cone pyramid eyes a snail observatory its obsidian arrow
each sky to dome the serpent header all for the trading
from the armchair palisade in waters moon pyramid all
flattened pedestals the false arch held added stucco mud
put to bald counts amid its vegetation the missing temple
they have piled up and the temple of dubious room idol
soils and the soiled inscriptions tuned as pilaster warriors
still bruising of sea to human sacrifice so sweetly to wind
baby faced jaguar amid the low land bas-relief of eagle
fled from tourism of hills sunk pools swallowing hearts
each or then some lend water cisterns one half removed
well spoken niche a plumage in stone the flesh workers
so passes the clad before petrification can labour dry can
and squalid motif takes off in biscuit fire snakes breathe
harm fret patterns stone masks well skull rack still flu
taken for the gilts almost everything in the war cabinet
the flanks bristled culled into facade park figurines due
daily life such as each dressed brick south low writhing
methods for skull from water canopy in the boring navel
flattening the child to deserted capital and butterfly scarf
so called acropolis rarely this military then a wild horde
reminiscent of the starring event dogs the make crusher
name most of all slopes corporation pilasters sacrifice
the stumps slaved that and ritual kills bag simple blood
stelae in dots and the brilliant frieze the copal swallow
dashes zero shells maths to astroturf bled city to rushes
what’s the Mayan they came by foot skeleton removed
for quick property and left in camera for further cutting
flutters giving the bridge sunk below remarks like their
coat plaster swish the sea the greens academy from the
really a city of the the stubble and in ashes scurf debris
dead and the fiver wild horses friend by monolith glue
the style goes hand clear stripe dating distant precipice
in hand with dialect elaborate coiffure sparks from land
church as instance the clay figurines of black and red
balustrade frenzy to crow fiery calf heart burn crane
before mass killing coming up rosiest the blood thirsty
squat flower cells of the rosey burns no they did drink

MINE OWNE IS BUT A HEAP

‘in a majority of cases the ruined buildings became the quarries for their several neighbourhoods, and the portions that remain to us were spared only because the supply of material was greater than the demand for it.’

Butler, Scotland’s Ruined Abbeys

 

onward heathen darkly

smarting as to bricks or

stony soils of later irony

spent surmising simples

that hills rise to ethereal

lamby landscapes each

cloud purple crag peaks

curious mail a clad slab

to banded capitals crude

and far from symmetrical

the death of geometry as

most welcome relief from

the picturesque elements

COLONNADE

purpling parts cable carpets maybe not clipt
participles stop bomb quilted diacritical cries
no not paragon that that stench given to comma
knows the cuts be applied for virgules in drifts
that other cuts funding the slip of parenthetical
prefer to should dune here soap pathos as lucid
as to showboat oil thing to shift punctual yawn
the muscle lags and then reek births the cold
hot cash is hot will be heavies some but salve
ripe fees is all soup tooth ray in conclusion
at the point of while the tort stop mr postman
simple sciences just diffidence enough gives
situationism for this in a same a focal shifter
giving it crème dance factory blames the how
tangled scanner whatever else long have we
a ruse warbling there’s affect got sepia swaps
the idiot roomer suppression no sans serif spine
yow to drizzle blood on sheer to stoop spleen
we be the strike slip dot ramble labour lawns
committee can part lie part sic plume stones
line the corpse parts lark spent and then just
for dead labour push ahs come rank belletristic
the sheen tome after it dawns better part of
boot camp for the blown lame gurred reserve
girls so rrotic blurring scams cumulus screed
as to strip paint as the end here clod of the urb
off the double nigh on drawn but wait it is
yellows how the blaeberry is but a drone media
days turn pink a thing hardly say unobtanium
is dusted onyx ever seen ever rust belts off
a red top look folded into font pool for peas
class levitation dogma to glyph freezer bags
for middle-class not for negation blur into spot
kids trying to a middle voice dusty & sparse
sound hard so to obsolescence glottals ahead
the pluck make said the sapphic in abstractions
surfing a sicky to the queasy the struggle to
muddling middle lapping blurred take in typecast
the very melody how go dozing cloud classing
as the sold gram parks the grime that but clouds

SPANDRELS

the spandrels go dark the spandrels go dark
but not in any rushes from want of a better
then not quite warmth way of holding to sky
more draining scarred to the shared horizon
and some guest studio to each place held in
some greatness flames atmospheric pressures
thinking a lived cage there comes the scale
and a bussed argument and its heaviest hand
takes to colour glass is the trumpet piping
where old house dries a demise of classical
a mould comes through class politics a song
and these lack filler whose darkening clock
lack any hidden depth goes reify reify this
the spandrels go dark the spandrels go dark
spelling archest cups and the quality darks
pretty rich gargoyles are a season mourning
and darned fiction to the fall as autumnals
suit some maker meets do the rounds the new
one with light browns black fades off sable
and all my very thing stone does strokes in
doing scandal skips a any direction any but
neck dimed to strange resistance prevailing
the impacts limed the how to sever its arch
phrase larks searched capitulation to pitch
once pursed screaming the throw of the loam
now roof felt or sky on propped up leaders
the spandrels go dark the spandrels go dark
destructions still to just as the clocks go
come and agony blends back and back a night
labouring for a fifty that oblivions forget
per cent haircut debt only to bake for dawn
rescheduling in fiery bricks to mirror soul
doubting a pure build upon carbon firmwares
gives regimes of seem sepia come tree rings
a transitional castle that narrative cracks
object in the temples what animus retaining
of terrorism as marks spirit in the dresser
show bullets here and and some damned irony
here cue losing looks for conceptual mortar
the spandrels go dark the spandrels go dark
as the bridged reason then brighten up from
takes turns for worse the perspective their
shows in spent detail revolution sheds over
how to fact structure impending social moss
into sheer moment sag that as a leaf patina
the sadness the light ferns catching in mid
potential to concrete sentence its bindings
one universal after a shirked down to birds
friend of said praxis a sick building drift
and another friend in blown into a friendly
talks with the church fire drill who clears
for want of a shelter the desk and corridor

SKYLON SONG

o

sky

song

skylon

half way

house and

paths lost but

summit meagre

brick charred ruin

burning burning so

still the none comes

and portals to watery

beds how sweet flows

concrete steel a thread

its once and future city

shows this slender cigar

steel that floats and flags

bonfire of the modernists

how each visible support

does a lash propaganda

sleek symmetry as cakes

for the millions who saw

who came who felt a sky

high into vertical breeze

to scrap of ashtrays and

satellite dishes air spear

here over the whimsy of

fabric and braced bulbs

their aluminium lattice of

something darkly atomic

who gave us the housing

scheme as advertisement

such as its fallen to furies

its towers and gates and

walled antithesis to each

point of consumption the

framing the gilded dome

in nursery screen colour

what is fondly fed out as

with a few trees for foils

skirmishes against pains

curtains to slender spars

all windy a most useless

art but drawn ever in to

dissed city a warehouse

and mobiles in smashed

vermilion this if the fires

were what we give and

giving take for the walls

each charter’d dressing

so onward goes the bid

that tenders to the tune

of can we fix it and yes

we propose a lingering

among ruins still for no

of all that boldness still

will so bear its deadest

scribe by whose means

the city will be opened

and the skylon well that

hang up a bit in the air

held astonish the place

dreaming a toyshop for

an eternal disaster flick

then on in flat pack life

cul-de-sacs a vernacular

throttled birth ever new

riverside property scam

buildings are not boxes

with four walls and a lid

said Vergil to his Dante

come in from off streets

where thinness is made

blueprints for new town

sensible or not too dear

practical but rather dull

but at least a trend from

away to gloom of wars

who have not shelter no

great gusts of socialism

guided by is it a moon

you call the anchor or

late symbolist smudges

there where its shades

are wholly covered up

olympiads harsh in the

citadels of the east the

brack of building dust

hosed down in lottery

funded circuses but a

low noise circling still

here the margins are

just margins or more

screed huddles about

its person and directs

towards a city arising

and best left for quiet

singing behold dissed

city behold the police

manner a brokenness

playing the part as of

Brutus the republican

its frozen crust off the

festival hall set into a

frenzy of mezzanines

its much vaunted sky

for the shy abyss of

property prices the

still fighting stars a

noise of business

till the artificial

is least serious

almost dance

airs turning

as rational

to stay up

amid late

showers

and let

lights

left

lit