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    Surveying the Wreckage
    Surveying the Wreckage
    Surveying the Wreckage
    Ebook85 pages31 minutes

    Surveying the Wreckage

    By Glenn Telfer

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Prelude to Gotterdammerung; we are now entering the golden age of madness;
    Considering the gathering storm and wondering who will deliver us from it, gods and heroes being posted missing again.
    Everyone comes to feel that they are living through the end of days; eventually, though, it will be true. And, as we run out of rail on our single track to better, perhaps it will fall to us to achieve this final and dubious distinction.
    This is my jeremiad. And finishing with this trope, I turn my gaze towards the rose-coloured dawn and the paths to better worlds, which I think lie just over the hill.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGlenn Telfer
    Release dateFeb 6, 2016
    ISBN9781310099649
    Surveying the Wreckage
    Author

    Glenn Telfer

    I am now almost fully grown, being born in 1956 in working-class Glasgow, Scotland (from Kinning Park, Dennistoun and Ibrox, if you’re asking). The hammer and tongs, coal-powered world I grew up in is as gone as Troy, and with it the industrial working class that served it. What seemed so solid and forever, disappeared almost overnight and is rapidly becoming unknowable except through people like me. The hasty departure of a way of life and its replacement by globalized uncertainty is both the background to my life and the raw material of my art. Considering what’s gone, what’s here, what’s yet to come is what I’m about; itemising the bill of life through my writing. Other poets have explored this too, but none are as like the poet as he is himself. This is my special qualification. Imagine being able to write a book? Even when I was a wee boy throwing stones and playing street football I wanted to be a writer. And all the while I thought I was living my life backwards and sideways I was actually tracing a Celtic knotwork to here. Whatever the reason for this want, this writing may be the cure. May be is also maybe not.

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      Book preview

      Surveying the Wreckage - Glenn Telfer

      Mama Weer All Krazee Now

      On entering the golden age of madness.

      Triangulating

      Admittedly I’m there too

      so obviously no heavy judgement

      is implied on fellow café culturistas,

      but I am seriously bemused

      by this group of frighteningly civilised,

      ten pounds overweight at ten,

      boys enjoying mochas and muffin

      swapping texts and sharing

      a tablet (no, not that sort of tablet)

      that keeps them up to date in their

      world utterly at home with the sofas

      and the toasted Bucheron ciabattas.

      Seeing one ordering another mixed

      round of coffees and smoothies

      with pleasant authority at the counter

      I see my pals, ten pounds underweight

      at ten, spotted from the landing windae,

      with the same naturalness as if too

      standing at a coffee shop counter,

      rake the midgie bins for swadgers

      having just been told by Dougie’s mum,

      He’s oot, Son. He’s been oot since seven.

      And then myself here now, as the third

      vertice in a triangle beyond understanding.

      Instructions and Safety Advice

      On opening the packet

      I discover instructions

      my 50+ years’ apprenticeship

      no longer a sufficient

      knowledge base.

      And there are safety issues too

      as the world of danger extends

      to bedding and sleeping apparel

      stay clear of naked flames

      advice illustrated by a cartoon

      of a flaming torch figure

      with arms-as they would be-aloft.

      Avoid Nylon Bed-sheets! Which

      I presume-it does not say-refers

      to the build-up of static electricity

      turning the victim to a living

      van de Graf generator inevitably

      discharging around the marriage zone,

      likely resulting in more flames

      as absurd meets its match

      in the bedroom

      which it always did, but never before

      with pyjamas.

      Now we only need irony

      to make the scene complete

      although this has never

      been in short supply

      when the light goes off.

      as I’ve always supplied my own.

      So I’ve been told.

      Now in HD

      moving fearlessly among us

      talking to their faces

      but always talking making

      the deal keeping mates up

      to date preventing silence

      which would not be silence

      for them inside where it is

      noisy as the visitors room

      on visitors day where the

      the promise of lessons

      in bad language is fulfilled

      as they duck between warrants

      ...regretfully admits to consuming a lot of alcohol and drugs

      and convenient loss of memory ...on the day in question, M’lord

      although not loss of self esteem

      one thing that their education

      alas succeeded in imparting

      while boasting about blow-jobs

      on Youtube and breaking

      the quiet of night with shrieks

      and revels, and misery for all

      everywhere noise in their radius

      only one more noise needed

      and the choice to be made

      for the force continuum;

      verbal warning-taser-baton-gun,

      or

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