.....DB Fishman..................

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POETRY
Carcinogen Wire
DB Fishman

Dead Left Hand

Poetry
2009
DB Fishman was born and raised in Edinburgh and
believes in finding modern art in regular street
scenes. Now mid-twenties, DB is currently based
in Stirling and still not medically allowed to drink.

All images produced by the author.

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by

Dead Left Hand Press
Priestfield Gardens
Edinburgh
EH16 5JN

Copyright © DB Fishman 2009

The right of DB Fishman to be identified as the author

of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988
All rights reserved

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from

the British Library.

ISBN 983-0-667-55555-1

The publisher acknowledges financial assistance from

Publishing Scotland

Typeset by Fishman DTP

Printed and bound in Scotland by
McKenzie Print Services, Aberdeen
Everything
is
True.
 CONTENTS
It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Leith (Lunchtime) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Martyred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Rococo Footsoldier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
.: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Scenes from an Overload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Streetswept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Bus Girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Easy Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
In the Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Surrender? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
XXXX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Never Enough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Cosmopolitan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Wait, What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Slagheaps of Jade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Who’s a Woman Now? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Death Car
Solid 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
(Theme from) Death Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Clean Sweep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Over the Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Exhaust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Over the Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Wraparound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Stirred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Loster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Tagged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Ruptures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Day of the Match; Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
v
One for One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Notes Inflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
25 Songs to Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Inverurie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Cradle of Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Nostra Culpa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

G0d
π . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The Wash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Like a Fascist, A Slavetrader, A Hypnotist . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Peanuts with a Sledgehammer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
God’s Fingerprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Afterdeath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Chinese Lilly Wish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Glimpsed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Installation Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Us >< Anxiety/Cancer/Neurosis >< Civilisation . . . . . . 47
Cycles & Seasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
American Golgotha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Murk Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Dying of the Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Carousel Horses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
THE NEWS STEPS Down on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Optimism of Rubble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Topple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Red Spot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
The Passing of One More Chance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

vi
 Carcinogen Wire

It

Life is short
Life is hard
Life is good

1
 DB Fishman

Figure
A man
Stands Collapse?
On the tarmac Will he strip
In the sun Naked and feel the heat
Of Of starwarmed constructs
An early summer On his skin?
Noontime Will he look around
His hands dropped Himself?
By his side Hammer fists on his
His mouth closed Thighs; flesh-on-flesh?
Will he start Will he try
To walk? To run? To see what (if
Will he sit down anything) is
Breathe In the sky?
Closing his eyes? Will he speak?
Will he lie Shout
In the path of Out?
Traffic? Will he smile?
Will he detonate
In explosion? This man is you.
Melt across the curve Carry on.
Of the road like butter?
Will he simply fade away
In the heat haze?
Throw a rock and
Smash something?
Begin screaming
Uncontrollably?
Will he quietly
Drop his eyes and
Internally

2
 Carcinogen Wire

Streetswept

The Pidgeons
look
like
Crawling
& Petrified
Hearts
Cut Out
with nervous
Heads.

9
 DB Fishman

In the Forest

The tree trunks cut

Thick and ragged
Endless parallel wakes
Up through the grey
Like inky vapour-trails poured
Over dirty water
Branches bleeding across like
Cracks in the ice

Surrender?
Tatters of polythene carrier
Bag hang from twisted prongs
Of the tv aerial of a
Suburban home like
A ragged white flag
That no one notices because
Nobody’s looking for it.
The notion of resitance was
Never even considered.
12
 Carcinogen Wire

Cosmopolitan
Are you married
yet? Pregnant?
Do you think you’re
hot? Here,
smell this
Chemical fragrance
- It’s nice.
‘My Sexual Dysfunction’;
‘Wolf whistles: Do they
make you Angry or
make your day?’; ‘How
to make a Relationship
last’; ‘How long
He should last’; ‘The
Vibrator Revolution:
There’s no male
equivalent’
Are you married
yet? Pregnant?
Do you think you’re
hot? Here,
smell this
Chemical fragrance
- it’s nice.

15
 DB Fishman

stirred

The contained

tumult of the body

of a river

under rain

26
 Carcinogen Wire

Loster
He long hair blow out, carry
crate beer through crossroads traffic
He smoke fag to filter, sat in doorway
He stare cheap LED phone covers through
shut shop pulled shutter
He kick chip wrappers apart leaving bar
He out on the main street midday
hands pockets
He shaven head greying over
crumbs of empty table.

27
 DB Fishman

Tagged
Cocks for democracy!
Cocks for equality!
Paste up your likeness on
A phonebox in Niddrie
And in Tipp-Ex
Marker or scratches
Your genitals will appear
Showing it’s known that
In the heart of your LA
Apartment, at the front of
A multimillion dollar campaign
Underneath everything, you are still
A human being like
everyone else
And if you were ever to come
Around here
They could prove it.

28
 25 Songs to Write

Pretended Money S/he Sponsored Prayer

Who’s Dead Exit Strategy Fake Black Men
Super Little Compromise I swim Colours Trying Hard To Feel
Mutinous Physiology Broken Grandfathers Statues to Dust
Reagan’s Ketchup Pissing Dreams Nazi Fear
Pussyboy Into the Dawn Mask-Tape
Love Notes Prosthetic Head Toothrattler
Carcinogen Wire

Work Horse/War Horse Bad Sex Wrong People

Learn by Doing Death of a Middle-Aged Furthest Point Out
White Man

33
 DB Fishman

Cycles & Seasons

ROOM 1 – Desiccation
Room 2 – Nothing much.
room 3 – fading fast / Scratching back
sparks like cuts
ROOM 4 bloodfire EXPLOSION!!
Stabbed and Savage
Room 5: 1969Falling space…
Room 6: .MATHEMONOLITHIC MAUSOLEUM.
room 7 – formless enunciation
drowning; filling
everything; no words
..
[Room9]- Storm a-Come Down
Blow it all off/ Away
Torrential
Room 10. The Incredible Roar of the Wash
Monet’s Waterlillies brought us here.
Incredible.
Room 11 – Towering vast warmth
force and arc
Vicious Hard Blooms.
The bright blossoming of the residue
Concrete wordlessness of absence.
Room Twelve Arterial Spray & Infinite Looping
RED so Bright
They Hurt my eyes

48
 Carcinogen Wire

Dying of the Year

Wire not Wood

Warmth in Cold

Soft hot Close

Knock on Thaw

Colour of Breath

Hard frozen Pricks

Stone still Wood

Snow starts Falling

Thin Light reaches

Aching rock Whisper

Nothing for Miles

51
 DB Fishman

Carousel Horses
Carousel horses
with wide-eyed abandon
in wild flamboyant lustre
end up going Nowhere
But slowly succumb to rust
and the longer you watch
the more those eyes have a look
of terror.

52
 Carcinogen Wire

Topple

2993. Manhattan
191. Madrid
88. London
52. Bali

15 – Klebold,Harris
32 - Cho
46 - Whitman

1800 Katrina
10000 Sichuan
30000 Nargis
73000 Kashmir
100sx1000s 26/12/04

Hurricane Tsunami Cyclone Tornado Earthquake

Wild Fire Forest Fire Bush Fire Drought Flood

Hacking cough
Cracking the egg

War
War
War
War

Run from yr clawed thrones

for the mountain tops

55
 DB Fishman

These dark men are standing on the border

Of the burning ribbon of horizon
Lone young men armed to teeth
with purchased firepower
Stood at the edge of
the falling away

Red Spot
A rose
Petal in the bank
Of dead and fallen
Leaves; a fan
Of muscle wall
Raw, red and
Open.

56
Urban violence, isolation, anxiety and metropolitan dereliction:
Carcinogen Wire views our surroundings with a modern eye. What
is gender, class, faith or nature in the 21st century? All of this is
brought against the power of music, the raw energy of art and a hard-
won love in Edinburgh poet DB Fishman’s eclectic debut collection.

All images created by the author. £5.99