On Richard Cabut’s Disorderly Magic & Other Disturbances
(Far West Press, 2023)
Cabut is a Dickensian Punk, a poet sifting spells in dark gutters,
There the brew which breeds poems of piss and spit, spite and stars
Lay collected in rain through which he stares; a kind of Richard Hell
Trawling Hackney, before venturing to West End for remnants
Of Lydon in London and the empires of dark in lost bars.
This small, burning book, courtesy of Far West Press sees stares
Steaming. With George Ives’ take on justice he tracks
A ‘negative girl’ through the streets. With Bibliomancy as muse,
His poems, as with his prose, persuade fires to re-route
From ruins and make every road along which we stumble
And roam incomplete. Francis Bacon bestows in a Soho doorway.
Angels fall, frying into the sin-soaked pan of the world. ‘Dharma Jack’s’
Ghost starts a trail that Vicious’ Punk primed pose fails to follow.
While, the ‘toothless writer of West Way’ observes how solids states,
Sedimented, start to seep like spit stirring the blood on the tongue
Of the girl who seeks to piss in a pool and sink into this city,
Full of blister slashed magic and the barrage and burn of old beats.
Cabut conjures the past and by implication the future.
He seeks ‘the unalloyed feeling of heavy hymns’ and as he traverses
‘the strange energy of the streets.’ This is the manifesto one finds
When covered and spined the young writer, posed like a mix
Of Breton and Artaud is placed into print by the sage
Who has lived through time’s loss of a more visceral London,
One which Punk painted. A different Ground Zero, grime gained
Before Café Nero, ‘where the moon is made of tears…
..and Shapeshifters and Shoplifters have been immortalized
In Dick’s Age. Which is where we live now. Having papered
Over the cracks with used Kleenex. Snot and spunk staining
The re-birth that was, now still-born. Cabut’s magic revives.
It literally reconfigures. And one can see him wild-eyed
And speeding across the diary of days he has torn.
He is ‘mingling dreams, ‘ while lifting myth’s mask to stare
Harder. He is metamorphosing the message that indulgence
Grants, for escape. As he could clearly tell even then,
That the China shop is the problem, and that the Bull
Raging in it is always the martyr before it rushes
Towards fate’s red cape. Blood appears on bed-sheets.
The internet soon malfunctions. ‘Delicate malice’
Challenges ‘fragmented discourse.’ Sentences splice.
Word as rush blood and bolster. Verbs alone carry meaning.
As adjective addicts eagerly chase each wild horse.
Cabut’s is a new poetry. It is Trocchi and Thomas Stearns’
Try at Cockney. But in this warped wasteland, energy
Trumps elegy. Mishima throbs. The Aylesbury Estate begins
Aching. These pocket-sized burns are a bible that would turn
White City black easily. There is a new mould on Mars
That gives it the same sheen as Mitcham. Watch the shade
Of Rimbaud run riot across each of our ruined zones.
For these conjurings blaze. The size of the book is important.
At the span of a hand you can hold it as a shield which shapes
Those alone. ‘Bright sad stars’ fall. ‘Feelings Get Bleached Out.’
And the music that fuels Richard’s rhythms is play-listed for us,
Thankfully. A series of girls pass and merge, while retaining
The hold they had on him. His youthful flush of hair and bright
Beauty attracting them and us sets love free. For as a laureate
Of the dark, Cabut contains stars. The spit glistens.
If God is in his typewriter, or in that of any who write
He can see – angels and ache and past Polish tempests.
There is dead brother Faustin and the trail of a brass band
Up the stairs. There is ‘the impossibility of return’ in this
And in all our trespasses. And yet, dear dark Dick as Detective
Is hot on the trail of the flare which burning backgrounds begat;
His poems cinema them all into being. Like Crowley’s wisps
Of sex-mist and wonder Richard can rouse spirit-guides.
Which is what this book bares. It is a travel text for those tested
By the inadequacies of the present and by what it continually
Fails to provide; perhaps the star that Sid sought. Or the one
Which pin-pointed Jesus for Judas. In this book, what the truth is
Remixes ghost-music with Cabut’s care and his heart.
For relatives lost, as Danuta’s handbag lays open.
Dunstable is blown towards London courtesy of ‘The Old Windmill
In Amsterdam.’ That old song steers and soothes. The heat
Of hurt is soon Savlon-ed. The slap of lubricant lowers the thrust
And trust love can span. And yet the cold gathers fast,
Richard regards it now as a mirror. ‘The assemblage of memory’
Mars him, but he can toast it too, with wit’s cup.
He watches a lost river wind ‘flooding the bank of a future
Which might have been.’ Snow is falling. He writes his world,
And yours also, and then he ‘went quickly down the path,
Pulling my collar up.’ Snow can burn, too. Cold bites.
Love attacks us. But as we spume into gutters.
There is also the life-blood from which each new age
Can now sup. Place Cabut’s face in your hand. And then
In your pocket. What the Far West delivers is a delicious dog
Who barks at you and for you, too: Art’s hot pup.
David Erdos 21/2/23
https://www.farwestpress.com/far-west-books/p/disorderly-magic
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