cut out

cut out Andrew Spragg

The Red Ceilings PressMMXIII [rcp 49]

www.theredceilingspress.co.ukwww.redceilings.blogspot.com/

cut out Andrew Spragg

cut out was originally published in book form by Deptpress in 2012. Thanks goes to Richard Barrett for his support.

Further thanks goes to those who assisted with the project, in particular: Matt Cockshutt, Veronika Wilson, Stephen Mitchell, Alec Newman, Simon Howard, Drew Milne and William Fuller.

For Hattie & my parents

Report #0

of the many books not read or pushed to silence or pages folded to designate margins though incomplete and left in trace though not all of it understood but what’s with the word today you grasp at it any way let the weight polish your tum pinch one’s own to rogue and lacunae the dew and fathom silence by waking there is an agency fierce wept and you who wasn’t fixed as if on a number of times

figure running to and fro find a light and push a way in.

Champ

parts separate for the slurry lagoonnot worried but levels of care wanted to castfor all the notes I know the notes

loaned notes or contenders the trumpeter’s lipsbegin in bruising with practiceto the quality is shorn a brass plate a name

going unrecognised for serif and slid by the recordedacclaim the clouds grope for one another first knowingand we key text and for all the notes I know the notes.

Report #1

Precisely at two o’clock take up your coat and walk we havea rendezvous secret and to a charm a life

has there been anyone seen in the indefinite years of his absence

Classify

All seen danger, senses protectedand smoothly does it, the distress well –motive questioned opus helping; not trembling,

letting on and knowing but found there’s an out.Impressed perfect cry on the open space,wasn’t to him but to the teaching

give latinate to the offing, fix all.There’s lingering on or predilectionfor the mist of the page.

Letters set and behind the impression,accumulation of returning vapour and ink,push tougher to make ident last.

Report #2

your anonymous letter was left ticklish and rouge for days stuffed in a cabinet and with its own permafrost of allegationi suppose i and left the moment but slip do not mind that

filed under general good tripled in kind the lone work the storks do the rough patches and fixing up the flat buzzes with books and hanging in the awaiting air

gold appetites gone behind and always do this and brave always with this gained a basis of self by assume a project the thing in your accusation is that it assumes a self to have begun

yesterday was a technicality of things we’ll lock onto like you and you and you and shaping up to the infinite love whose wealth will be taxed

work belt

to the mudlark and the burial, though beginning all againfetch me my file and tremorous workingsfetch me my gents and better passing

to the faint gin tracesbe away I swear mechanism upon mechanismmain measure the wirkd out and world

out there be raised onthe flats of murkunquestionable seasons flood in

Report #3

there is not a single casual eye in the house but fixed on like riding the night lanes or working to earnest. Let us reword the deserting treasure by the river or what’s been given to a phrase

to earnest chance forgetting all elsethe kind of sign of distemperbe my subject for thought transfer

extra time and extra aware gripped to ticklish centre in summer treason comes easierthat part is a study of your own accord your fixing to and waiting for the trail of anotherlist not lest thou be listed be not begrudging lest thou be begrudgedmaybe this august will be the one where the carry-all really does carry all

that knack

Fraught matter, frame & memory majorsecretarial work, the clerical stars just vanishunder suspicion, though check grossly out.

All said –done those whodo not do.

Forms of devotional art o yehand easy to chuckle at,scrutinise each act.

Our man urgent cut-outjust out for a sec;snapping shut all things there’s then to need.

Report #4

well no and forgetting to meet in the middle i waited for you in the park for two hours i ate my lunch and then wondered what matter is

cursing you and then again i ate my lunch and then wonderedwhether there were papers awaiting exchange glancing at the briefcase and waiting then glancing again and this time it was gone

i filed this bit by bit under our observations right under the table of all the things you like to eat and how many times i saw you that last season the one where you wore the warmer twice and your gloves only once despite it being cold enough that these would not arouse suspicion

later on lying in the bed in the safehouse i thought through your face and tried to recall your jaw so as to pick you out of the footage currently under review it really was the most compelling exercise the footage and i wondered if you too sat and worked your way through the footage of me with such exactitude

what this world needs nowis more exactitudeor to think speculativelyof the charges we’ll make.

Generate structures: ON

trial shocks and clamberingover remarks, throwing clear neonover high scrapes

wreathed in the garish lightsetting the gaps and gross like stonescluttered between the sleepers

to the big store – shop practical purchasebe in spot the plosive hum containmentbouncing down the piano keys

diaspora roamed carparkprudence do the pleasantriesas programmed

or just the politic of a camerawrong to lean to and late to colluderemove this application

from the balcony then swish pitcha box of papa beardand doctor papa

surprise then all by the hellof fine leading features:processing stretch after stretch of interest data

atop a white chargermouthing I believeto the sonar measure

compulsion/errors in the informationthrown bruising/edge to the gut atmosphericsflighten to the environs/bedrock silos with

only our method, the futurethough not manybelieve fine leading

place feature functionvalue attestattempt contemporary concernstill asked, asked where isefforts then switched to whenand then thepause came

when I was in the serviceI was never in the service

should there be the servicedeposited in the name of the serviceor fain spare thee.

Report #5

all relating nothing trained to start noted nothing – raw nothing -- something on a kind of slide

hell of a frame and all them spinning those yawning plates – got out and that object’s looking fatigued.

we’re oto you son and abroadwriting and talking and signing upkicking back the money and makingtracked figures through aisle streetsa companied scorn or let upfor a risk or a companion fraythe day works its silenceright along the skinvarieties of tasting measurewalk and listen towhat’s not forefront

we’re onto you son and abroadwriting and talking and signing upkicking back the money and makingtracked figures through aisle streetsa companied scorn or let upfor a risk or a companion fraythe day works its silenceright along the skinvarieties of tasting measurewalk and listen towhat’s not forefront

we're onto you son and abroad writing and talking and signing up kicking back the money and making tracked figures through aisle streets a companied scorn or let up for a risk or a companion fray the day works its silence right along the skin varieties of tasting measure walk and listen to what's not forefront











Report #5

all relating nothing trained to start noted nothing – raw nothing -- something on a kind of slide

hell of a frame and all them spinning those yawning plates – got out and that object’s looking fatigued.

we’re oto you son and abroadwriting and talking and signing upkicking back the money and makingtracked figures through aisle streetsa companied scorn or let upfor a risk or a companion fraythe day works its silenceright along the skinvarieties of tasting measurewalk and listen towhat’s not forefront


Report #6

mixing the blessings of so i sat by the river waitingas duty described weaned off the trial and eventual.

Q: what was that coming over the mountainA: more and more mountain


Report #7

then groaning over the horizon there’s such reasons to remainslight if one could rearrange the settings peering over the spectacles like it’s another edge you stepped from what do you change you change something

register thought and here’s the photo of the de-facto wedding we underwent what were the methods the grey decades the ghastly few my shirt is stained with lasagne and the world is literally a billion years oldscope that

Tense late

You and that and those heedy resources –brave anticlimax, found peering in the be-ringed cut.For this gang there is the dance andfor the sleep there is not much.

Brought violence to knowing halts,no resources with which to contain.Privileged cut, high action andrepeater rifle. The drawers full of

what really happened in the seventiesis you really happened in the seventies.

Report #8

dual set i’m losing it one of kind or one of one or anything possible unpractised taste i enjoyed the flavour and the vibe oh and i was not for much else

parallel derailed pardon disarraythere will come a pointwhere there isjust pure concernpick up and move on.

Report #9

going down the housesallay our fineststructural fears impossible depositbe all emergency gift

where and how toput these things

that light you’re emittinghereis also overthere

To the Department

As per subject to report to climb down. As per status and traction. Be aware that this serving hot-foot and made in tremor. Is that still there. Which mode and start with rain and start with caustic air and start with pavement and start with the feet don’t as much pad as pace as come close to phantom.

In the week I interweave our work moving from doorway to doorway connecting strays. I love the city in spring slash summer slash autumn slash winter delete as one may see then fit. Be clear the city is a hot mass of body and strong to bold in measure. I am clear in my run down the department then. Here’s some screeds:

# enduring long instances of buzzing energy# throttle the new skill# invited to speak# often to

from the context thenturning this in.

Report #10

what tried and proofs are acquired but in or by passing of the chance that body anthology holds and by extension what appeal briefly we were making space been meaning to buy it

regardless of the feeling the group will be inevitable in their desire to kick your face in or join you up and no more experience will nor more privilege that

of the pausing and the dynamic of the genuine and that warm flush of speaking with what authority the one long sigh that hammer will be the death of me there is nothing but a man

and a thousand mechanical hammers all waiting to fall what name do we do what with words occasional good or occasional bad brought up short transmit your goodbyes from either side

of the glass so wait on then one that redeeming word coming all from afar a touch to work on it or all out again let me whisper in your ear as a capsule or a grown stain

be straight now about the number and weight of your every conviction the cold are leaving clues to their questions it is in a manner of speaking

Andrew Spragg is a poet, performer and critic. He was born in London in 1984 and lives there currently. To Blart & Kid is due to be published by Like This Press in early 2013. He has had work appear in Hi Zero, Half Circle and on The Literateur. His writing was also included in Dear World & Everyone In It: New Poetry in the UK(Bloodaxe, 2013). He edits Infinite Editions, a blog that publishes free poetry postcards for download and distribution.

Publications include The Fleetingest (Red Ceilings Press, 2011), Notes for Fatty Cakes (Anything Anymore Anywhere, 2011) and cut out (Dept Press 2012/ e-Publication by Red Ceiling Press 2013)

The Red Ceilings PressMMXIII [rcp 49]

www.theredceilingspress.co.uk www.redceilings.blogspot.com/

Perhaps it is the lightness of touch with which absences are figured thatmakes this assemblage feel so inviting. The title brings into play cut-outs andscrapbooks, editing and pasting with scissors real and virtual, but what pricethe cutty sark of our cut silk idioms? As contemporary fiscal thugs should know,some cuts do not heal, but these reports, divertissements and superimpositionsslough of the sloganeering politics of so much contemporary writing. There’s awit here that reminds me of Tom Raworth, and I can think of no higher praise

Drew Milne

Andrew Spragg’s cut out requires “enduring long instances of buzzing energy” as its disturbed sentences turn themselves inside out or overlap in perplexity to “allay our finest/structural fears,” in return for which the newly-endowed reader––cautioned not to be “begrudging lest thou/be begrudged”––takes delivery of “a thousand mechanical hammers” for constructing thought transfers. This process is recounted in a series of informative reports compiled for our speculative scrutiny. Portions of “report #5” resemble Ohio. Scope it.

William Fuller

Documents

cut out