F

 

[F]

 

Fanfare for f: flaming f fire fierce of face

funky faffing f famous for feeling for flow

fortunate fabulous frenetic f friend of fact festive

flip-top freeform free-feed.

 

Foxtrot for f: foreign f familiar f funny-ha-ha f

funiculi funiculà ffs f wtf f stfu f

freudian fat fig f foxy fancy fruity fair-enough

figurative fantasies fancied.

 

Fugue for f: fiddle f-hole filigree floating

fluting fingertips forming fountains facades

fervent fans forever of f fast fading faint f.  

 

Finale for f: feet fail finally friday futile forlorn

formal face funeral for f forms follow functions

filing fleeting fleeing fling forgotten f farewell.

F (May)

The letter for fog is a lamppost in the dark, lively O of haloed light, that glimmers somewhat alike to O on wet ground below. The letter for Friday isn’t the same as Monday, as he descends again at five towards a world not found in the book he’s reading on fourteenth-century mystics. The letter for fire persists in their writing, shaken to life in the grate at Prime, daily reminder, cold as may be, love will awaken and breathe again. The letter for frankincense vies with that for Fairfield as he looks up from reading on his early train.  

F (February)

F is for February, grass whitening that could go up in a fire. Fire, the mental preparation can go on all year. Schoolchildren are on the footpaths again, the school run a frantic bank-up of bumper bars. Butterflies inhabit their being that will flit thither once the teacher starts talking her alphabet. G is for good, a word like any other. Does it require mental preparation? Good breathes through the grass and will stop a bushfire, though no one talks in these terms. We learn it in school but it’s never merely conceptual. We feel its presence when it’s absent.

F (September)

 A few favourite F words. Farthing: a far thing, so near and yet so far. Feather: reminder of the enigma of being human. Feckin’: Irish intensive. Felicitous: Felicity + ous. Fez: fezzes are cool. Filigree: form flows from function. Flower: September in the South. Flute: primordial as percussion. Foam: what the surf leaves behind. Fog: omnipresent at the time. Form: frequently follows function. Forgive: how the Gospel breaks the barriers. Freckle: the geography of skin. Fuck: capable of vast variations of tone and import. Functionary: fills forms. Funferal: microcosmic one word summary of ‘Finnegans Wake’. Funnel: descriptive of its utility.