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| B.H. Fraser works in the City of London.
Poems can be found on this website.
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Click here to watch
and listen B H Fraser reading |

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BH Fraser read on Resonance 104.4FM's The Naked Short Club
Monday, 17th May 2010
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BH Fraser was the Poet In Residence for this year's Gaim International
Grimaldi Forum Monaco, 15th June
2010
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How shirtless wrestling gave us Elvis
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Scottish psycho babble,
on a hill appeared a rabble
somewhere between Edinburgh and Glasgow
in Highland bubble.
The wild furnace
of one on top of another
In a second each replaces another
in the tumbling down of numbers
both sides betting on themselves
flashing signals
to each ‘another’ (they were cousins).
And
in
a
trance
it dawns on themselves they’re in a wrestle eternal
while falling
a long way and back
drunk on the humour of the Big Yin Ben
singing to themselves “amen”.
Although not god keeps them alive but the devil.
The bloody mist, how deep it went is this.
These eyes of our fathers
we thought of happiest
every drinker on mead benches with smiles that sparkle,
refeshing eternal sight with the cup of life monarchal.
All our blood was this.
With names like:-
Bloody Mary,
Doggie Don Donald,
John/Coffin
and
Bonnie Prince Fairie.
All on parade and at the main event.
The most fearless of all Mad Margaret - an ancient Gaelic -
otherwise known as Lights Out, Meg Merrilees, The Maid of Perth.
She spewed forth from heated tunnel –
thrust concentrated
and without thinking
in blind tempo,
"Hold the door open, Gladiator, you ken.
I'll fight the restaurant boy
And send him hame to think agin."
As there standing by a tree
is the youngest, boy best, stand-out stood,
Ranald, Chief of All the West.
How do you describe him?
As Bringer of War?
Or Peace?
By Jupiter,
All and everything –
trained well.
For engagement to see nobody.
How friendly,
His boot the size of Murrayfield.
A certain tendency.
Suddenly he had a vision
aroused this sleeping forest,
the sun to rise, to warm us.
An end to this exile
for the Northern King,
the bloke over the water
whose like shall not be seen again.
Everyone's Heaven heard this,
All the birds began to sing at once.
The trees now aflame
In perpetual summer.
Where is this peaceful wood?
This heavenly mansion,
This path strewn with dreams,
And footfalls to you
In earthly moving –
An air as fragrant as honey.
Each flower its own perfume.
Breathing deeply,
The trees grew as straight as pillars.
I heard a rainbow sing,
As Meg realised atop her throat screaming:
a loon as equally ugly as dishevelled.
Still a moment to ask for a drop from the distillery.
to pass to my neighbour,
to be his slave forever and name our child ELVIS.
As when the King appeared in Memphis,
his history traced in descent from a Haggis,
of Scots, dead, useless
naked and topless,
We raise a glass to remember
the master magus
both Norse and Norman
a cross between man and woman
Not in our glen but in Las Vegas.
B H Fraser |
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He seemed to be in the grove,
Where the eye meets dot.
Press send,
I said passing him
On the cross between Strand and Fleet.
Acknowledged as friends
Amid the bright din
A delete with unknown horn yet.
Wasted was this breath to stop his melody,
As he turned
As quick
Into traffic:
Walked across the road in front
The watch he had still watched
A world on its axis stopped
The flame was bright still and he fought
Then gave a rattle, a rally,
A man approached
The shoe travelling,
An air of hostility in flight
A vision.
Behold it.
Landing in old ovens tonight
Recording only the dead.
Although
The passing cloud
Had looked rather different earlier.
B H Fraser |
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15th-17th June in South of France agreeable.
Met lots of very important people.

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Blessings on Monaco
And all its palaces –
Particularly the one I live in
Covered in bourganvillea.
Or the yacht I forgot to mention
Abacus 1,2,3.
Or a matter not unconnected,
The boiling of the sea.
B H Fraser |
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To arrest the error
To tackle the devil
To offer steps to Sibyl
To unravel the riddle
Of trade perpetual.
I give you a séance/stance
Of monkey dance
And half a chance
To get to France
To fix the farmer who went to Basel
To clip my hedge
German or French
Watched from my floating note
With trail upon trail
Of scented soap.
B H Fraser |
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It was clear, blue, immobile.
Suddenly on command
And quite snappy
In one direction and then another
Straining at both illusion and shadow
It made me quite happy
Getting directional
With every aspect of infinity
A trade of itself
So pure
I stayed up late
Uncorrelated to behaviour
As he or she was
Or could be
Possibly.
B H Fraser |
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With flag and acropolis,
As animal spirits greeted us
The air shook,
Sound mutinous,
A trade Med with Club dead.
Some of this familiar.
Hurriedly, I put my ear to the ground
To hear junk trembling.
Soon they would come,
These default virgins
Bearing rotten olives
Without demurring.
B H Fraser |
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Running powerfully
From Berne to Washington
The sound of tut tut and drumming.
Above, bells
for new marriage
between regulator and regulator.
Isn't it wonderful
data correlated
to voice and nervous sinew
by young business school
as star crossed models
the new brothers
all names inter-twinned - winners.
Fooling millions.
Pure velocity, surges/rallies.
Suddenly last message reads:
blame the Alternatives.
B H Fraser |
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With LIBOR neutral
We wait for Godot.
The jokes we share,
Make sense of the ruin.
For some out there a failure.
B H Fraser |
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LINES WRITTEN ON THE CURRENT FINANCIAL MELTDOWN
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I shall bring you now by muted mouth
To sacred text
Naked and extinguished.
I shall bring you now
Either
To the end of time
Or new summit.
I shall bring you now
To entertainment.
To boys
Who take you up and
Down
And around again
In simulation
Until the music breaks.
I shall take you now
Into a sea of ruin
Where chaos
Is computer-driven
And the cancer
Has every tongue still
I shall bring you now
To neither good nor evil
But observation.
B H Fraser |
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Licking his lips
Without tank, fuel empty,
Contemplated below
No signal
The new normal -
Instrument and eye combined in symmetry.
A hawk, hunter killer,
Circling,
In his glide wondering,
Like every killer he would be hungry
After killing.
His machine/stomach always empty.
Hunger turned him into missile
Aimed at cities.
Making the new extreme quite normal.
B H Fraser |
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Could not mistake in the mist a-making,
the drazzle blazing
of a cuckoo.
cut through to summer's coming.
a clear cut call, shook the wood
we were like good sunday people,
dared not say a word
while that bird was chirping.
Blessed god in those stamped lips
while our children wept,
knowing the fool of it all.
While Yyydrassil watched
beyond a table that had been set.
B H Fraser |
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One hell of a carry to put around you,
Your ears, your face,
All flesh will soon be blessed
With Dollar Calamare/Empire Squid.
A bug bitten son of a trail commission
Hero of friendly, breaking-your-leg, persuasion
Some giant playground to return to later
Performs a ten minute trade with naked option.
When trading, just a feeling he's just visiting
His pathetic victim
Tied to wheelchair or investment prism.
The prospectus read: that's for little people.
By lowering you down to depths
Of unimaginable shrimpness
Where they borrow against you
Before you're eaten.
Stunned by some flash trade
Others deeply impressed
Can help with clarification
By easing the trading of funnies,
Pegging the currency or stress testing unfavourably
Competitor.
If not squid,
A bank that's on the move with giant tentacle.
Knowing it cannot fail/quite impossible.
The house wins like every best casino.
Monte Carlo or Dead Sea Scroll
It doesn't matter,
If you have the ace,
You have the hole.
B H Fraser |
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WHEN THE REMAINS ARE STILL
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In a single step bound
To April
When the remains are still
A shallow breeze
Lifts the cuckoo
To tell of summer.
As cups become full
With fresh flavour,
The season moves more cheerful
To sound unmistakeable.
Each step madder now,
The first girl I saw I gave a kiss to,
She was a stranger.
That's what's strange about nature.
B H Fraser |
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About love aloud
You quietly type
Sitting as moon behind a cloud.
"Dallas, is that…. ?"
"Houston, come in !"
That rocked launched, was it you ?
And in your voyage,
Travelling
Who were a million instruments
All talking to?
As ranger
You guard, I see,
Orion's Belt.
With something wonderful.
A light with the power of twelve stars
Where a million canyons join.
I sometimes see you
In your electric chariot
Adding word to word in ecstasy.
B H Fraser |
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Lift your eyes.
Who are you ?
Now a hand cold
Warms me.
Laying up
Like two ships froze.
Watching.
Both of us
Watching ourselves.
What is broke lies hidden
Waiting below.
The cold it has is fire.
It melts all rigging
And every soul.
B H Fraser |
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In inscriptions, dates and confidences,
Preserved, rallied, referenced.
A high up misrule
At angle.
Echoed a hoped for
Resurrection.
I knew your voice.
Paid for at entry.
There was fire drill:
For the grave has its own music
Flat and wasted,
A note frozen behind cypresses.
This electric horse you spoke of,
Had it any reference to the way
I looked upon you
Riding along the Westway ?
B H Fraser |
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It is sunrise over Ruislip –
In circles that are ornamental
So-called by council
Those names are silent and gentle.
An almost light yet
As everywhere,
The commuter is stirring.
Awakes to thunder (rail to rail in competition).
A heat to somewhere.
Home organised perfectly –
Dinner prepared before leaving.
With urgency and haste.
Gentle, merciful motherings relate.
Returns confused.
In text,
we,
god.
Shall we dango the fan? Really?
Earlier that afternoon,
I took tea and tango.
My red shoes nearly killed him.
They did.
B H Fraser |
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To beat the clock, my alarms ring –
Please god, give them what they want.
I lie awake sometimes like this,
Unable to think
Until I manage the leap
From bedroom to basin
To begin my week.
B H Fraser
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Her ambition is killing
as
Miss Wembley sets out on the six thirty,
reading of holidays, manicures, pedicures–
enters
perfectly in ironed veil
doing admin in excelsis to the metal rhythms,
and computerised voices directing thoughts and noises
firmly between train and platform.
So making her way by season ticket
up through Maida Vale and the wealthier mezzanines.
Who is she?
Secret, searched for somewhere
on the North Circular,
is she the lark she sometimes says she is?
Just for a moment
while still visible in this setting out and setting in
her wings still visible,
in the rapid, early commuting.
Others noticed but did not say
as they went up and down
and along their way
in their more ordinary migration.
B H Fraser |
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HAPPY VALLY {14th February, 0000}
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So how about tonight?
Conditions seem somehow right.
You remember the filing cabinet,
Fax machine and stranger blackberry?
Now we have something more agreeable.
To sit alone amid hotels
Indulging ourselves in all those smells;
And when it takes our fancy
Call ourselves Sid and Nancy.
Worry, worry, worry,
Time's such an absolute bother
Except when rendezvousing
By the nearest railway
Without a need for endless email.
And think of all the gifts -
Silks, bracelets, shifts.
Clothes wrapped in seeming eternity
With shoes of the finest diamante.
Scent of roses and clementine
And diamonds from Tiffany.
'Come on down then'
Join me on this bed of flowers
To pass each minute and every hour.
B H Fraser
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In a crash of symbols, recessions, jingles
With all the trappings of failure
In rally between nought and zero
As rates encourage more mania
Carried away to darker pools and caves
On the wheels of twelve casinos.
Now in a mass of bleeding liquidity,
A bladder with too much credit –
Circuits of pipes and plumbing
Beyond treatment.
What lies there
A simple domino of taste.
A golden apple.
A matter not of net but gross.
More than life or death.
A lifetime spent to blind Greece.
To guarantee a fortune
Without any benefit.
Let our villas, though, be saved
To live the way we live.
B H Fraser |
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With something personal
Hand upon receiver
Make this truly awesome.
Die Hard guys laughing and giggling
To themselves as they ordered pizza.
Who measure this smallest tremble.
Kids raised on Marx and aphrodisia
The same boys (spoilt I think)
Who broke the campus window
To the hot gates
Every top floor directed -
Ice sculpture of ourselves in victory.
Told to be alert, sensible
As the smirk shifted
To bundled reserves
In mysterious havens -
Correlated lights
For many to swim to.
Make science alchemy
If crazy/others madmen.
We stand in shadows
At times motionless.
From the depths: Listen. Terror. Kiss.
To those who push back
Who fall but want a piece of us.
Instead we step aside
To take to the inferno
Where dogs clean their bowls in pure lust
And money is like gold dust
A four minute warning is all you've got to join us.
Outstanding.
B H Fraser
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LAKE MICHIGAN, RESISTANCE IS USELESS
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Like some infectious carp,
My bonus out
Ponders the darkening.
A hundred pound predator,
An inland shark
Swims towards the great
metropolis.
No system should despair
Nor Michigan resist.
Every good American, booted, on.
He paid our debts.
Made our borders strong.
And the greenback,
What you'll find at Kingdom come.
If it please the mighty
Abraham
In smile-less state
Opening those holy and
beloved gates.
B H Fraser
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Just when you thought you had your bonus for 2007
baked along came Sub-prime. One recently liberated Investment
Banker sent me along these two valedictories.
JERUSALEM NEW TOWN
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(from William Blake) |
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And did those words in City speak
tell us much about what was said?
And was this secret place still England
now it's owned by global inc?
And did the governor (himself divine)
Judge like Mercury upon a whim?
And was mammon raised here
amidst these bright, intelligent things?
Bring me my bonus of burning zeros!
Bring me a nod from my manager!
Bring a decent appraisal, o career unfold!
Bring me a car with two steering wheels!
I shall not rest from making millions,
nor shall power sleep in my wallet,
until we have built a new Jerusalem
where money is without limit.
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CITY SONNET |
(from William Shakespeare) |
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Shall I compare an option to a future?
The thought of all that money is lovely.
Markets are volatile - alleluia.
Wow, the contract has a month longer
And the market's gone loco.
Hey, it could be an opportunity (in such confusion).
As once in a while you get this kind of thing -
To go away in May and come back in September,
Overpowering us happy few with a price
Nobody can remember.
I guess we couldn’t believe it -
The vanity of the forbidden City.
For as long as someone’s able and willing,
There’s always a chance to make a killing.
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