A gifted body,
crafted from the best grade
flesh and springs,
with the thorn they plucked
from the lion's paw
now deep in the heel
of that body's foot.
This is good sense
misguided by a narrow point
of view. You wanted to reach
into your hamper of ideas
and share them around.
Chestnuts for a hot summer?
Peaches for winter?
Not to worry:
think of it like the stone
you gathered for a house
but ended up using for a path,
or think of those people
who make jewellery from bones.
Somewhere, there has to be
a false start.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Berth
See there, where the land moves
and sparkles like tinsel?
That is the ocean,
and those things that float on it
like pieces of a kitchen,
they are boats,
and all of this together
is what we call the marina.
Oh, you have heard of pirates?
Yes, I guess this is where
it might all begin,
healing or horrid,
ushered in by a few fattened gulls
and the bittersweet smell
of petrol being coughed
through olive water.
Yes, there are things out there
that are only to be found alone,
and which mostly stay out there.
Of course, if you don't like the idea
of the sun cooking up storms,
of days of rain,
you can always stay here
at this seaside cafe.
But let's just wait and see.
When we turn our backs
on this half-erected circus
the trees might suddenly
seem quite silly,
and the firm ground
much too shallow.
Yes, I agree,
if you had to choose one,
then that one there would be good.
Yes, it does have character.
It just seems to give
so much purpose to its wood.
and sparkles like tinsel?
That is the ocean,
and those things that float on it
like pieces of a kitchen,
they are boats,
and all of this together
is what we call the marina.
Oh, you have heard of pirates?
Yes, I guess this is where
it might all begin,
healing or horrid,
ushered in by a few fattened gulls
and the bittersweet smell
of petrol being coughed
through olive water.
Yes, there are things out there
that are only to be found alone,
and which mostly stay out there.
Of course, if you don't like the idea
of the sun cooking up storms,
of days of rain,
you can always stay here
at this seaside cafe.
But let's just wait and see.
When we turn our backs
on this half-erected circus
the trees might suddenly
seem quite silly,
and the firm ground
much too shallow.
Yes, I agree,
if you had to choose one,
then that one there would be good.
Yes, it does have character.
It just seems to give
so much purpose to its wood.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Drawkward
Holding the line
is difficult.
The cult of difference
(that is, not holding the line
in a drawkward way)
is unevenly more difficult.
All this time
that you were trying to hold
the line,
it was finding
its own shape,
becoming
as rough as knuckles,
as uncertain
and as certain
as a coastline.
Occasionally
it treated you
to an act of retreat -
a place where you could take hold
of the difficult
outline of events,
a place where you could draw
on the truth
that the truth
is only ever
awkward,
even when it is even.
Take, for instance
the distance
between you
and the point
of your making a difference -
globes blow,
planes fall,
chocolate makes
you quake,
but the audience
live for incursions,
and then live on
for that question:
And let's now see
how he or she
goes about
holding the line.
is difficult.
The cult of difference
(that is, not holding the line
in a drawkward way)
is unevenly more difficult.
All this time
that you were trying to hold
the line,
it was finding
its own shape,
becoming
as rough as knuckles,
as uncertain
and as certain
as a coastline.
Occasionally
it treated you
to an act of retreat -
a place where you could take hold
of the difficult
outline of events,
a place where you could draw
on the truth
that the truth
is only ever
awkward,
even when it is even.
Take, for instance
the distance
between you
and the point
of your making a difference -
globes blow,
planes fall,
chocolate makes
you quake,
but the audience
live for incursions,
and then live on
for that question:
And let's now see
how he or she
goes about
holding the line.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Willowfeed
We will fell willows
by the river
when summer has rattled
the cattle feed.
When willow limbs fall
by the river
their cascade will call
to the cattle.
Each year, we wander
farther upriver.
(2003)
by the river
when summer has rattled
the cattle feed.
When willow limbs fall
by the river
their cascade will call
to the cattle.
Each year, we wander
farther upriver.
(2003)
8am Skater
So there was a gentle decline,
and the sky that morning
was crystalline,
but it was the way
she stood on her board,
like a Degas dancer,
or as if before
a flattering mirror.
She swept down the hill,
face tilted in the wind,
propelled by the willing world
past us walkers
who were hooked on the corner
waiting for the lights to change.
She made pedalling seem pedestrian.
When you move like that
all human ports
and all shores of work
matter for naught,
because you
are the moment.
and the sky that morning
was crystalline,
but it was the way
she stood on her board,
like a Degas dancer,
or as if before
a flattering mirror.
She swept down the hill,
face tilted in the wind,
propelled by the willing world
past us walkers
who were hooked on the corner
waiting for the lights to change.
She made pedalling seem pedestrian.
When you move like that
all human ports
and all shores of work
matter for naught,
because you
are the moment.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Bus Poem No.203
I'm no Plato, but this bus
is a moving cave
engineered by rationalists
to convey us to our homes
where we will fall into
our irrational selves.
But for now, we are bats
in the velvet light,
wings folded,
hanging like sacks.
Who knows who among us
is petulant, or who snaps
up every opportunity,
who has flatulence,
who sweetens their tea,
who dreams he is Cleopatra
and she is Antony,
who plays the pipe
and who can't read.
What we do know
is that for now we are
as we were initially -
travellers
hanging out in a cave,
ultrasounded,
contiguous,
as disambiguous
as barometers
in a closed setting,
mentally sketching
echoic schemes.
is a moving cave
engineered by rationalists
to convey us to our homes
where we will fall into
our irrational selves.
But for now, we are bats
in the velvet light,
wings folded,
hanging like sacks.
Who knows who among us
is petulant, or who snaps
up every opportunity,
who has flatulence,
who sweetens their tea,
who dreams he is Cleopatra
and she is Antony,
who plays the pipe
and who can't read.
What we do know
is that for now we are
as we were initially -
travellers
hanging out in a cave,
ultrasounded,
contiguous,
as disambiguous
as barometers
in a closed setting,
mentally sketching
echoic schemes.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Last Train of the Day
Out of the blue,
grey, or whatever colour
in which you find yourself
beginning to lose yourself,
sleep will approach you,
always a stranger,
no matter how many times
you have met before.
It is prepared to take hold
of your ankle,
with a hand that rises
out of an asphalt lake.
Alternatively, it might kindly
seize your wrist,
like that wealthy blood relative
with whom you are not yet acquainted,
the one who says:
"Enough of this!
Before you can go any further
you must first recover.
Quick! Hop on board
my private train."
Sometimes you will go
without resistance,
buying into a sure bet
where every ticket
at least wins a pillow.
Sometimes you will be more reluctant:
When you notice the crows
alighting from the street lamps,
you will fall through the closing door
as the train is pulling away.
But sometimes you will not be so sure.
You will find yourself admiring flowers
through the window of a closed shop,
or persuading yourself that you can hear
a symphony being performed
just a few blocks away,
only to end up
back on the platform,
alone, and writing
on foolscap in your head
a lemon juice letter
to the sleeping station master,
hoping to ruin his day.
grey, or whatever colour
in which you find yourself
beginning to lose yourself,
sleep will approach you,
always a stranger,
no matter how many times
you have met before.
It is prepared to take hold
of your ankle,
with a hand that rises
out of an asphalt lake.
Alternatively, it might kindly
seize your wrist,
like that wealthy blood relative
with whom you are not yet acquainted,
the one who says:
"Enough of this!
Before you can go any further
you must first recover.
Quick! Hop on board
my private train."
Sometimes you will go
without resistance,
buying into a sure bet
where every ticket
at least wins a pillow.
Sometimes you will be more reluctant:
When you notice the crows
alighting from the street lamps,
you will fall through the closing door
as the train is pulling away.
But sometimes you will not be so sure.
You will find yourself admiring flowers
through the window of a closed shop,
or persuading yourself that you can hear
a symphony being performed
just a few blocks away,
only to end up
back on the platform,
alone, and writing
on foolscap in your head
a lemon juice letter
to the sleeping station master,
hoping to ruin his day.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
The Comic Tree
On the shaded side of the high rise flats,
below twenty floors of beige cement,
there grows a tree, threadbare and rickety,
superannuated, but still alive,
and roughly two stories high.
Who knows how it ever got a start.
To keep it going, God reaches down
every other year
and runs his invisible hand
through its prickly leaves.
This is a tree that does not play host
to a circus of birds,
nor cracks a quick joke,
nor sports a butchered and loopy trunk.
Quite simply, its raffish and comic streak
consists of catching fallen clothes,
chiefly blown shirts and gusted underwear,
racking them up for the world to see
until each item of this lingering lingerie
becomes like a piece of ragged fruit
and then weathers away, to sweet nothing.
Maybe you don't see funny side of it,
viewing the tree and all its razzamatazz
as a grim gathering of I-surrender flags.
Or maybe you look up to it
as a daring investment
in apocalyptic haute couture.
As for Le Corbusier,
that tree must be a bad dream,
designed to lampoon
the concept of a public washing line.
below twenty floors of beige cement,
there grows a tree, threadbare and rickety,
superannuated, but still alive,
and roughly two stories high.
Who knows how it ever got a start.
To keep it going, God reaches down
every other year
and runs his invisible hand
through its prickly leaves.
This is a tree that does not play host
to a circus of birds,
nor cracks a quick joke,
nor sports a butchered and loopy trunk.
Quite simply, its raffish and comic streak
consists of catching fallen clothes,
chiefly blown shirts and gusted underwear,
racking them up for the world to see
until each item of this lingering lingerie
becomes like a piece of ragged fruit
and then weathers away, to sweet nothing.
Maybe you don't see funny side of it,
viewing the tree and all its razzamatazz
as a grim gathering of I-surrender flags.
Or maybe you look up to it
as a daring investment
in apocalyptic haute couture.
As for Le Corbusier,
that tree must be a bad dream,
designed to lampoon
the concept of a public washing line.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Irretrievable
You're trying to remember what was said,
but you're pulling away from that moment -
What was it?
Your foot is hard on the pedal
and you're in reverse.
What was it?
But you're going in the wrong direction.
You're looking backwards
for something in the past,
something that made you both laugh,
and so reverse is forwards
and away.
All of this not-remembering
is making you hot and bothered.
Maybe if you take off your jacket
and sit beneath those trees?
And so you do.
But everything seems to be working against you.
What was it?
Something is spilling its coffee all over you.
You try to wipe the coffee away.
You think of the things that were in the room at the time.
What were you looking at when it was said?
You hear someone walking past
conveniently speaking into their phone,
"Have you heard, they found something on Mars. . ."
You look even harder for it.
What was it?
And higher, too.
Almost to the horizon.
But you have spotted something on the ground.
What an odd seed!
Velvet at one end
and turning rough at the other.
but you're pulling away from that moment -
What was it?
Your foot is hard on the pedal
and you're in reverse.
What was it?
But you're going in the wrong direction.
You're looking backwards
for something in the past,
something that made you both laugh,
and so reverse is forwards
and away.
All of this not-remembering
is making you hot and bothered.
Maybe if you take off your jacket
and sit beneath those trees?
And so you do.
But everything seems to be working against you.
What was it?
Something is spilling its coffee all over you.
You try to wipe the coffee away.
You think of the things that were in the room at the time.
What were you looking at when it was said?
You hear someone walking past
conveniently speaking into their phone,
"Have you heard, they found something on Mars. . ."
You look even harder for it.
What was it?
And higher, too.
Almost to the horizon.
But you have spotted something on the ground.
What an odd seed!
Velvet at one end
and turning rough at the other.
The Real Star Wars
In the Real Star Wars,
not long ago,
in a galaxy not that far away,
perhaps even next door,
yesterday,
the real Dearth Vader
gets Alzheimer's
and manages to mask it
from the Imperial Council
whose evil bureaucracy
carves out its own living
by misdiagnosing even more
personal things
than the human condition.
In the real Star Wars,
Luke, the son,
encounters the capeless Vader
in a darkened room
experimenting with a light sabre
that has been switched
from incurable red
to a setting of UV blue.
Vader is flicking it back and forth
to make the smoothest fan possible.
He is misspelling his name
in sweeping letters of light.
He is performing the perfect sword play
with that ridiculous figure of evil
who resides in the mirror.
This is the beginning of Luke's sweet revenge.
It is time to become the parent.
It is time to assume control.
And, for the sake of kindness,
without his father even knowing.
It is time to keep that kitch death star glowing
while maintaining for Vader
the illusion of his own autonomy -
not a bad Hollywood version
of the science fiction we call life.
not long ago,
in a galaxy not that far away,
perhaps even next door,
yesterday,
the real Dearth Vader
gets Alzheimer's
and manages to mask it
from the Imperial Council
whose evil bureaucracy
carves out its own living
by misdiagnosing even more
personal things
than the human condition.
In the real Star Wars,
Luke, the son,
encounters the capeless Vader
in a darkened room
experimenting with a light sabre
that has been switched
from incurable red
to a setting of UV blue.
Vader is flicking it back and forth
to make the smoothest fan possible.
He is misspelling his name
in sweeping letters of light.
He is performing the perfect sword play
with that ridiculous figure of evil
who resides in the mirror.
This is the beginning of Luke's sweet revenge.
It is time to become the parent.
It is time to assume control.
And, for the sake of kindness,
without his father even knowing.
It is time to keep that kitch death star glowing
while maintaining for Vader
the illusion of his own autonomy -
not a bad Hollywood version
of the science fiction we call life.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Eight
I am eight,
which could be a zero
contracted in the middle.
I seek diamonds and avoid death.
I have a bed.
I long for a dog
but I accept my loss.
I whistle when I'm on the toilet.
My shoes are reckless
when they leave my feet -
a family trait that counts me in.
Half of what I eat
are the sandwiches I make myself -
not bad for a person
who is not yet complete.
But incompleteness
also has its advantages:
I can still squeeze into places
where most people cannot go
and people instinctively take my hand
when I offer it.
You want to know more?
My fardel is monstrous to bear.
When my father takes it from me,
he always says, Who would fardels bear?
My mother cleans my eyes.
My trains are falling behind me.
My canary called Jack escaped last week,
and so I have left the cage door open for him.
My strawberries haven't yet learned
to ripen in the shade.
I am captivated by the local creek.
I farm and I dream
of electric sheep.
I rarely laugh,
I prefer to grin.
When I am nine
who knows how much of this will remain
and what I will have in my tin.
which could be a zero
contracted in the middle.
I seek diamonds and avoid death.
I have a bed.
I long for a dog
but I accept my loss.
I whistle when I'm on the toilet.
My shoes are reckless
when they leave my feet -
a family trait that counts me in.
Half of what I eat
are the sandwiches I make myself -
not bad for a person
who is not yet complete.
But incompleteness
also has its advantages:
I can still squeeze into places
where most people cannot go
and people instinctively take my hand
when I offer it.
You want to know more?
My fardel is monstrous to bear.
When my father takes it from me,
he always says, Who would fardels bear?
My mother cleans my eyes.
My trains are falling behind me.
My canary called Jack escaped last week,
and so I have left the cage door open for him.
My strawberries haven't yet learned
to ripen in the shade.
I am captivated by the local creek.
I farm and I dream
of electric sheep.
I rarely laugh,
I prefer to grin.
When I am nine
who knows how much of this will remain
and what I will have in my tin.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Structuration
The world shapes us a little
and we shape it back a little.
The world acts on us a little
and we act on it back a little
The world fights us a little
and we fight it back a little.
The world hits us with a goat a little
and we hit it back with a little goat.
The world never mistakes itself for us a little
and we mistake ourselves for the world a little.
The world opens the door for us a little
and we barge through the door a little.
The world constrains us a little
and we hit it back with a goat a little.
The world makes us a little offer a little
and we make it a little offer back a little.
and we shape it back a little.
The world acts on us a little
and we act on it back a little
The world changes us a little
and we change it back a little.
The world makes us a little
and we make it back a little.
The world fights us a little
and we fight it back a little.
The world hits us with a goat a little
and we hit it back with a little goat.
The world never mistakes itself for us a little
and we mistake ourselves for the world a little.
The world abandons us a little
and we are not always able to abandon it back a little.
The world pays us a little
and we pay it back a little.
The world pays us back a little
and we pay it back for its little pay back a little more.
The world opens the door for us a little
and we barge through the door a little.
The world constrains us a little
and we hit it back with a goat a little.
The world makes us a little offer a little
and we make it a little offer back a little.
Spam
If you like these poems, then you should know
that you have inherited 20 million dollars
which the poet needs to ship out of his country,
so please send your bank account details immediately.
Alternatively, deposit in the account below
enough money to cover the publication
of a small print run. Trust me, this is no more a scam
than it is an attempt at a radically old style
of poetry, designed to make you doubt
a situation for just as long as it takes
to fall in love, or to place all of your life earnings
on a single horse in wide-open race.
that you have inherited 20 million dollars
which the poet needs to ship out of his country,
so please send your bank account details immediately.
Alternatively, deposit in the account below
enough money to cover the publication
of a small print run. Trust me, this is no more a scam
than it is an attempt at a radically old style
of poetry, designed to make you doubt
a situation for just as long as it takes
to fall in love, or to place all of your life earnings
on a single horse in wide-open race.
Epistemic Sonnet
What if all the choices that shape our lives
are poetry, as are all the words we have at hand?
Wouldn't that mean the social sciences were like sieves
and people the water that they try to understand?
We have a card for each thing we uncover,
but so often we are using the exact same card
for different things; and while this makes it hard
for us to make good sense to one another,
we do okay, and most of what we say
means little more than the clothes we choose to wear:
that man in the leather jacket still has his say,
that woman in plaid still gets to buy her pear.
Do words spring from the earth and obey the stars,
or are they in fact the flowers, and we are the vase?
are poetry, as are all the words we have at hand?
Wouldn't that mean the social sciences were like sieves
and people the water that they try to understand?
We have a card for each thing we uncover,
but so often we are using the exact same card
for different things; and while this makes it hard
for us to make good sense to one another,
we do okay, and most of what we say
means little more than the clothes we choose to wear:
that man in the leather jacket still has his say,
that woman in plaid still gets to buy her pear.
Do words spring from the earth and obey the stars,
or are they in fact the flowers, and we are the vase?
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
All aboard
Insects are milling
on the cold fluorescent ceiling
of a dormitory.
It is Spring, and from their beds
teenage boys exchange
their kits of desire
along with quips
and spare pieces of philosophy.
Above them, a miriad forms
of filament, chassis and canister
are pinned out in an upside down
museum display,
a great mismatching
of thorax, legs, abdomen, antennae.
For now, this is an entomological worshipping
of human light.
Later, when the lights go out,
the insects will scatter
to who knows where,
to deal with
who knows what matter.
on the cold fluorescent ceiling
of a dormitory.
It is Spring, and from their beds
teenage boys exchange
their kits of desire
along with quips
and spare pieces of philosophy.
Above them, a miriad forms
of filament, chassis and canister
are pinned out in an upside down
museum display,
a great mismatching
of thorax, legs, abdomen, antennae.
For now, this is an entomological worshipping
of human light.
Later, when the lights go out,
the insects will scatter
to who knows where,
to deal with
who knows what matter.
Who wrote this?
Poetry need not be true
to what you think, or even what you feel.
Authentic in the attempt, perhaps,
but who knows what waits inside
those words that arrive at the depot –
those brown paper packages
hiding their priceless china,
their ground bark, their reptiles,
even their explosives.
It’s a customs nightmare.
There is not enough time to check everything,
for the packages backlog
and no longer stack up.
"Just let them through. Let them through."
But this time, the poet says, "No!
We must examine them all."
And examined they all are,
those contents of another person’s life,
a teapot just like yours
but with an extra two stripes,
a lamp stand with a slightly different twist,
a rug that might have been
sprawled across your floor,
only now, when you look at it closely,
it doesn’t look like yours at all!
And from around the corner,
here comes someone
who wants to reassemble their life,
who resembles you closely
enough to be your brother,
an out-of-towner
with a different point of view,
perfect for a conversation
since they have been
through your life, too.
to what you think, or even what you feel.
Authentic in the attempt, perhaps,
but who knows what waits inside
those words that arrive at the depot –
those brown paper packages
hiding their priceless china,
their ground bark, their reptiles,
even their explosives.
It’s a customs nightmare.
There is not enough time to check everything,
for the packages backlog
and no longer stack up.
"Just let them through. Let them through."
But this time, the poet says, "No!
We must examine them all."
And examined they all are,
those contents of another person’s life,
a teapot just like yours
but with an extra two stripes,
a lamp stand with a slightly different twist,
a rug that might have been
sprawled across your floor,
only now, when you look at it closely,
it doesn’t look like yours at all!
And from around the corner,
here comes someone
who wants to reassemble their life,
who resembles you closely
enough to be your brother,
an out-of-towner
with a different point of view,
perfect for a conversation
since they have been
through your life, too.
Pathology
Every last one
of my last thousand ancestors
survived childhood,
trusted in a mother
and was, in turn, rewarded
with their own child.
Now it is my turn
to set down the next domino
in this record-breaking attempt
at prolonging life.
Watching that blood race up
into that plastic rocket-shaped canister,
you would think that those little haemoglobins
had been on vacation
and were eager to get home.
Blood red, the colour of the sun
when fire is approaching,
and other untrusting thoughts, too:
Are the other children all in school?
Did I snib the lock on the bathroom window?
Has the laboratory technician
through whose fingers this destiny will pass
been up all night with a sick child?
of my last thousand ancestors
survived childhood,
trusted in a mother
and was, in turn, rewarded
with their own child.
Now it is my turn
to set down the next domino
in this record-breaking attempt
at prolonging life.
Watching that blood race up
into that plastic rocket-shaped canister,
you would think that those little haemoglobins
had been on vacation
and were eager to get home.
Blood red, the colour of the sun
when fire is approaching,
and other untrusting thoughts, too:
Are the other children all in school?
Did I snib the lock on the bathroom window?
Has the laboratory technician
through whose fingers this destiny will pass
been up all night with a sick child?
Where life begins, and where it ends
Where does life begin?
Not between a woman's legs,
not in the oil and the pigments
of Gustave Courbet,
not with a surgeon, either,
but rather in the erect forceps
of a polished scorpion
found under an overturned stone,
or in the shining black tuxedo
of a cricket caught broadcasting
beneath a piece of dulled wood -
in either casing, a bright enough start,
if not quite a cosmic blast.
And from there, where does life go?
It runs along the unearthed tunnels
of an outsmarted mole
and from there, on to other networks
of even more shocking complexity,
like the workings of the sinus passages
of a lamb's head, severed
and with a sawn off nose.
Christ, Lamb of God,
forgive them their curiosity
and make them satisfied
with the outward form of shells.
And where does life end
after it has followed this ineffable
mathematical formula
into clubs, down laneways,
along celluloid, along strings of type font
into strange hearts,
into the rubble of atrophied suburbs,
along government-funded
yellow brick roads,
and on into lively jungles
where we marvel at how the dying
survive deadly diseases,
and then, closer to home,
down microscopes
to where another life
begins in a living end.
So where does life end?
Not in a coffin, but rather in a closet,
not in a vault, but rather in a walk-in robe
puzzling over the little matter
of how that cursed clothing moth
managed to break into the body-bag
of the antique suit
that we save for funerals,
then eat a palpable hole
and knit a wrangling white opposite
in the form of a chrysalis.
That is where life begins,
where it goes,
and where it ends.
The rest is another story.
Not between a woman's legs,
not in the oil and the pigments
of Gustave Courbet,
not with a surgeon, either,
but rather in the erect forceps
of a polished scorpion
found under an overturned stone,
or in the shining black tuxedo
of a cricket caught broadcasting
beneath a piece of dulled wood -
in either casing, a bright enough start,
if not quite a cosmic blast.
And from there, where does life go?
It runs along the unearthed tunnels
of an outsmarted mole
and from there, on to other networks
of even more shocking complexity,
like the workings of the sinus passages
of a lamb's head, severed
and with a sawn off nose.
Christ, Lamb of God,
forgive them their curiosity
and make them satisfied
with the outward form of shells.
And where does life end
after it has followed this ineffable
mathematical formula
into clubs, down laneways,
along celluloid, along strings of type font
into strange hearts,
into the rubble of atrophied suburbs,
along government-funded
yellow brick roads,
and on into lively jungles
where we marvel at how the dying
survive deadly diseases,
and then, closer to home,
down microscopes
to where another life
begins in a living end.
So where does life end?
Not in a coffin, but rather in a closet,
not in a vault, but rather in a walk-in robe
puzzling over the little matter
of how that cursed clothing moth
managed to break into the body-bag
of the antique suit
that we save for funerals,
then eat a palpable hole
and knit a wrangling white opposite
in the form of a chrysalis.
That is where life begins,
where it goes,
and where it ends.
The rest is another story.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Carol
Christmas is a faded bauble
the size of an exercise ball
hung up in a shopping mall.
Christmas is a one-armed,
chipped-nosed,
chubby-cheeked
Napoleonic soldier.
Christmas is a matter of panem et circenses.
Christmas is plastic wrap
that each year stretches deeper
into the hungry throat of November.
Christmas is when it hurts more
to cop a fine for fare evasion.
Christmas is a middle-class window
into an African famine.
Christmas is polystyrene Victorian lamps,
fibreglass snow
and the smell of hotdog water.
Christmas is a power saw wound.
Christmas is three wise men
with eyes popping out of their heads.
Christmas is a xenophobic story
about Santa Claus nailed to a cross
in a Japanese department store.
Christmas is a child getting a smack.
Christmas is a song on rotation.
Christmas is a song proclaiming that
the best things in life are totally free.
Christmas is a cynic
with a mouth full of cashews.
the size of an exercise ball
hung up in a shopping mall.
Christmas is a one-armed,
chipped-nosed,
chubby-cheeked
Napoleonic soldier.
Christmas is a matter of panem et circenses.
Christmas is plastic wrap
that each year stretches deeper
into the hungry throat of November.
Christmas is when it hurts more
to cop a fine for fare evasion.
Christmas is a middle-class window
into an African famine.
Christmas is polystyrene Victorian lamps,
fibreglass snow
and the smell of hotdog water.
Christmas is straight out of a Hogarth.
Christmas is a power saw wound.
Christmas is three wise men
with eyes popping out of their heads.
Christmas is a xenophobic story
about Santa Claus nailed to a cross
in a Japanese department store.
Christmas is a child getting a smack.
Christmas is a song on rotation.
Christmas is a song proclaiming that
the best things in life are totally free.
Christmas is a cynic
with a mouth full of cashews.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Crime Scene Investigators
The house opposite to where I live
has been a crime scene for as long
as I can remember. Like a song
that won't leave my head
it goes on and on and on.
When the investigation squad's
plastic yellow ribbon
(tied around the old gum tree
at one end and stretched
tightly to the neighbour's fence)
begins to fray in the sun and wind,
they replace it with the latest
chequered fashion in police tape.
And there is a constant string
of literary detectives
visiting the cordoned-off
carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
uncut lawn, cement and brick veneer,
a fresh detective every day -
I've seen Woody Allen go in there
verbalising every suspicion,
and Camus, too,
who quietly sucked on a cigarette
and didn't reveal much.
Last week Maupassant turned up
looking for a lead,
and the day before that
it was Emily Dickinson
doing her thing in surgical gloves:
such wonderful minds
to have come up with nothing.
And you would think that the clues
would age and wither,
that the fingerprints would dry up,
that the forensic information
would pass its used by date.
But the scene of the crime remains,
seemingly as precious
as a miniature ship
shelved inside a bottle,
or a deep love
stopped up in a human skull.
By now, that unvexed culprit
could be a million miles away,
or just across the street
looking on.
has been a crime scene for as long
as I can remember. Like a song
that won't leave my head
it goes on and on and on.
When the investigation squad's
plastic yellow ribbon
(tied around the old gum tree
at one end and stretched
tightly to the neighbour's fence)
begins to fray in the sun and wind,
they replace it with the latest
chequered fashion in police tape.
And there is a constant string
of literary detectives
visiting the cordoned-off
carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
uncut lawn, cement and brick veneer,
a fresh detective every day -
I've seen Woody Allen go in there
verbalising every suspicion,
and Camus, too,
who quietly sucked on a cigarette
and didn't reveal much.
Last week Maupassant turned up
looking for a lead,
and the day before that
it was Emily Dickinson
doing her thing in surgical gloves:
such wonderful minds
to have come up with nothing.
And you would think that the clues
would age and wither,
that the fingerprints would dry up,
that the forensic information
would pass its used by date.
But the scene of the crime remains,
seemingly as precious
as a miniature ship
shelved inside a bottle,
or a deep love
stopped up in a human skull.
By now, that unvexed culprit
could be a million miles away,
or just across the street
looking on.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Abel Defends Cain
My brother always held my hand, father-like,
when we crossed the arterial road on the way home.
From a status elevated by three colossal years
each year marking a more vigorous, more godly incarnation,
he still found it in his heart to hand me down
his outgrown T-shirts and his creased novels,
and not always without feeling a keen agitation.
When we swan together across the lake in summer
he would race ahead, and yet he always waited
for me to catch up to him before he raced ahead again.
On long journeys, he often vacated the best seat
when he grew tired, or when he grew too clever
for a monotonous roadside view. That big bully
in my dreams, the one who looked just like him
and who chased me around every dreamland corner
was just some wolfish imposter who couldn't be killed,
In the morning, the real him would be sitting there at the table
passing me the milk, once his own bowl had been filled.
When his blood-brother friends could not come over
he invited me into his carefully crafted world
where he allowed me to step into his beautiful traps
to put on the scariest mask, to try to uncover
his secret hiding places - places where even a tyrant father
would never care to look. And so, in return,
I felt bound to pay him back a good five times over,
insisting that it was he who was always given the first choice,
or taking one for him when he was absent,
or keeping a tally of his all his goals at all his matches -
these things were the very least I could do, I mean
I know how hard it can be to be a brother.
when we crossed the arterial road on the way home.
From a status elevated by three colossal years
each year marking a more vigorous, more godly incarnation,
he still found it in his heart to hand me down
his outgrown T-shirts and his creased novels,
and not always without feeling a keen agitation.
When we swan together across the lake in summer
he would race ahead, and yet he always waited
for me to catch up to him before he raced ahead again.
On long journeys, he often vacated the best seat
when he grew tired, or when he grew too clever
for a monotonous roadside view. That big bully
in my dreams, the one who looked just like him
and who chased me around every dreamland corner
was just some wolfish imposter who couldn't be killed,
In the morning, the real him would be sitting there at the table
passing me the milk, once his own bowl had been filled.
When his blood-brother friends could not come over
he invited me into his carefully crafted world
where he allowed me to step into his beautiful traps
to put on the scariest mask, to try to uncover
his secret hiding places - places where even a tyrant father
would never care to look. And so, in return,
I felt bound to pay him back a good five times over,
insisting that it was he who was always given the first choice,
or taking one for him when he was absent,
or keeping a tally of his all his goals at all his matches -
these things were the very least I could do, I mean
I know how hard it can be to be a brother.
The Faller Climber
Who can say how long or how far you had been falling
through the darkness when first you caught hold of something
in your left hand, which, like a ribbon, ran along with you as you fell
ever slower, until your right hand caught another something, and another
and finally you stopped falling, and finally you thought to yourself
Now I understand, after which, in the darkness, you gingerly began
to pull yourself along, gathering in those propitious threads
as you worked your way into the silky world of knowledge,
not quite a performer, no, but something to be compared
to one of those roving rope-loving acrobats from Cirque du Soleil,
climbing your way around for a lifetime inside a single head
in search of other fallers who also caught hold of a thread.
Mental Health Week
It is mental health week, and to prove it
at the bottom of my cluttered bag
where a shaggy copy of Szymborska
fends off toothpicks, pen lids and foil-clad painkillers,
are two identical balloons,
yellow and stamped
with smiley faces and unbegun slogans
think well. be well.
Deflated, or yet to be inflated,
however you look at it
they are rubber and mass produced
and they are making my bag smell like a hospital,
so perhaps I will blow one up to a sensible size
and let it go in the wind
after a funeral
or in a playground;
the other, I will blow up until
it reaches that critical point
where people start to notice it
and cover their ears
and look away,
and then I will blow some more -
a comforting thought
in a broken kind of way.
at the bottom of my cluttered bag
where a shaggy copy of Szymborska
fends off toothpicks, pen lids and foil-clad painkillers,
are two identical balloons,
yellow and stamped
with smiley faces and unbegun slogans
think well. be well.
Deflated, or yet to be inflated,
however you look at it
they are rubber and mass produced
and they are making my bag smell like a hospital,
so perhaps I will blow one up to a sensible size
and let it go in the wind
after a funeral
or in a playground;
the other, I will blow up until
it reaches that critical point
where people start to notice it
and cover their ears
and look away,
and then I will blow some more -
a comforting thought
in a broken kind of way.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The Boom of Inclusion
Press that depressing button
on your phone
and feel that little boom of inclusion.
That boom is the tantalizing magic
of coltan minerals –
a spell unmatched
by the unmagic of written assurances,
by any supplier’s map,
by any signed agreement.
That boom is the shudder
of a baby swallowing milk
in the shade,
of a spade hitting into sand
in the tropics,
of a single gunshot
in the Congo.
We have our magic.
We turn pages.
We open gates.
We shift weights.
We change currencies.
We grind bones into powder.
We make tracks.
We lose track.
boom.
on your phone
and feel that little boom of inclusion.
That boom is the tantalizing magic
of coltan minerals –
a spell unmatched
by the unmagic of written assurances,
by any supplier’s map,
by any signed agreement.
That boom is the shudder
of a baby swallowing milk
in the shade,
of a spade hitting into sand
in the tropics,
of a single gunshot
in the Congo.
We have our magic.
We turn pages.
We open gates.
We shift weights.
We change currencies.
We grind bones into powder.
We make tracks.
We lose track.
boom.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Homage to an Ancestor
Before I was even conceived, my great grandfather
crafted his own headstone - a task not too different, I imagine,
from whipping up the white boxes he used as real estate
for his bees (he was an apiarist by trade)
or knocking together a boot (he was a cobbler too)
or rigging up the first electric lights
his small town ever knew - not that they would sit beneath
the bulbs, in case liquescent electricity dripped
on their flammable heads. Have I made my point?
Can I now declare that in the mellow Edwardian light
of his eyes I was always destined to fail -
to fail whenever I remember him, this stout little man
who I never met, but who now crawls down
through the piping of generations, and shines
his home-made flashlight into my head,
this man in the gelatin silver photo, the one who is feeding
Frostian stove-length sticks of wood
into a giant buzz saw, and who never lost his hand,
who at the age of twelve, when his father lost his head
and drowned himself in the deep asylum dam,
would cut up a lamb, wrap the red meat in flippant sheets
of wild newspaper, and stack it all on his billy cart
(oh, he made that too) with his baby brother
perched on the back, and go from door to door.
What else did he do that I can employ
to measure the transmundane distance
between his sensational feats and my scratchings?
He carved an angel into the purple shell of an emu's egg.
He pressed floral patterns into the tin of flattened cans.
He made time flux in crippled clocks.
He shore sheep.
He mined eternal gold.
Can you understand
how I will forever be fresh dirt
in the bone sockets of his unearthly eyes -
I who was dumbfounded, and who fumbled
for an answer, when my own son, Samuel,
his namesake, once asked me
if the moon could catch on fire.
crafted his own headstone - a task not too different, I imagine,
from whipping up the white boxes he used as real estate
for his bees (he was an apiarist by trade)
or knocking together a boot (he was a cobbler too)
or rigging up the first electric lights
his small town ever knew - not that they would sit beneath
the bulbs, in case liquescent electricity dripped
on their flammable heads. Have I made my point?
Can I now declare that in the mellow Edwardian light
of his eyes I was always destined to fail -
to fail whenever I remember him, this stout little man
who I never met, but who now crawls down
through the piping of generations, and shines
his home-made flashlight into my head,
this man in the gelatin silver photo, the one who is feeding
Frostian stove-length sticks of wood
into a giant buzz saw, and who never lost his hand,
who at the age of twelve, when his father lost his head
and drowned himself in the deep asylum dam,
would cut up a lamb, wrap the red meat in flippant sheets
of wild newspaper, and stack it all on his billy cart
(oh, he made that too) with his baby brother
perched on the back, and go from door to door.
What else did he do that I can employ
to measure the transmundane distance
between his sensational feats and my scratchings?
He carved an angel into the purple shell of an emu's egg.
He pressed floral patterns into the tin of flattened cans.
He made time flux in crippled clocks.
He shore sheep.
He mined eternal gold.
Can you understand
how I will forever be fresh dirt
in the bone sockets of his unearthly eyes -
I who was dumbfounded, and who fumbled
for an answer, when my own son, Samuel,
his namesake, once asked me
if the moon could catch on fire.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The Fate of Empires
It was this park bench
(hardened with as many
coats of plush enamel
as there are rainy days
in a decade)
that sent me back
to that fluorescent avenue
of ornamental trees
with its whiteout
of ceremonial blossom
quivering in the breeze.
But this is now,
and that stock-still tree
(the one just over there)
is watching me
from the gnarls and whorls
of its layered bark
with as many eyes
as a pack of wolves,
and see how its roots
have been set out
around its burly trunk
like waiting paws.
(hardened with as many
coats of plush enamel
as there are rainy days
in a decade)
that sent me back
to that fluorescent avenue
of ornamental trees
with its whiteout
of ceremonial blossom
quivering in the breeze.
But this is now,
and that stock-still tree
(the one just over there)
is watching me
from the gnarls and whorls
of its layered bark
with as many eyes
as a pack of wolves,
and see how its roots
have been set out
around its burly trunk
like waiting paws.
Hope
Hope, I lost you in the garden
with the name of flowers
so true that they follow us
to our grave, and later leap up
for the eyes of our nameless progeny.
Hope, I glimpsed your corpse,
positively, in books of guilt,
long after I refused to vote
with my soft feet
and instead went about my father's work.
Hope, I couldn't recognise you
behind those glasses and moustaches,
or in that blood-red lipstick and those hoopy earrings,
tricking me into playing my part, too,
for laughter and for love.
Hope, I falsely accused you
of good deeds that you might not have committed,
then I hid when you knocked on my door,
and later I wrote this poem,
sincerely, to apologize.
with the name of flowers
so true that they follow us
to our grave, and later leap up
for the eyes of our nameless progeny.
Hope, I glimpsed your corpse,
positively, in books of guilt,
long after I refused to vote
with my soft feet
and instead went about my father's work.
Hope, I couldn't recognise you
behind those glasses and moustaches,
or in that blood-red lipstick and those hoopy earrings,
tricking me into playing my part, too,
for laughter and for love.
Hope, I falsely accused you
of good deeds that you might not have committed,
then I hid when you knocked on my door,
and later I wrote this poem,
sincerely, to apologize.
For Prime Minister and Country
Loopy troops
or just breadwinners who stray
in old Afghanistan?
(After all, you take work
where you can.)
Boy scouts gone mad
or just video game buffoons
who seek the ultimate graphics
in old Afghanistan?
(After all, you were COD's
biggest fan.)
History class dropouts,
or just groundbreakers
breaking old ground
in old Afghanistan?
(After all, there's nothing quite so rational
as an anger-management plan.)
or just breadwinners who stray
in old Afghanistan?
(After all, you take work
where you can.)
Boy scouts gone mad
or just video game buffoons
who seek the ultimate graphics
in old Afghanistan?
(After all, you were COD's
biggest fan.)
History class dropouts,
or just groundbreakers
breaking old ground
in old Afghanistan?
(After all, there's nothing quite so rational
as an anger-management plan.)
Monday, November 12, 2012
Japanese Calendar
When I am sweltering, your shrines catch me the snow.
When my flowers bloom, your leaves flush to crimson.
When my leaves blemish and fall, your flowers erupt.
When snow falls in my life, you offer me golden fields and steaming roads.
When I sink, you elevate me.
When I am the fulgent moon, you deal in wells.
Your streams cut through my rock.
Your rocks guide and steer my streams.
Boats wait at your lake’s edge, as empty as a Sunday morning.
Your rain slashes at April’s woodcut.
My heart gallops at the end of every month.
When my flowers bloom, your leaves flush to crimson.
When my leaves blemish and fall, your flowers erupt.
When snow falls in my life, you offer me golden fields and steaming roads.
When I sink, you elevate me.
When I am the fulgent moon, you deal in wells.
Your streams cut through my rock.
Your rocks guide and steer my streams.
Boats wait at your lake’s edge, as empty as a Sunday morning.
Your rain slashes at April’s woodcut.
My heart gallops at the end of every month.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Goldfish
Goldfish in your orange evening gown,
lugubrious lips toying with the surface
tension in a sunlit tank (a christmas purchase)
where there is no 'long way down',
where every night is another humdrum ball,
another circus of addiction,
another eye-popping perlustration
in your quest for a stale morsel.
lugubrious lips toying with the surface
tension in a sunlit tank (a christmas purchase)
where there is no 'long way down',
where every night is another humdrum ball,
another circus of addiction,
another eye-popping perlustration
in your quest for a stale morsel.
Emergence (e)
The morning after a day so torrid
that it cooked the socks and stockings right off
a marathon of administrative feet –
that morning is a frigid morning,
a continuous April in London dawn,
masquerading as one long apocalyptic dusk,
where people who quietly covet more sleep
resent so deeply their puffy faces,
where the little red dome of a dusty alarm bell
mounted high on a factory wall
seems softer, and all the objects that we usually ignore
pine to be noticed - like the lovesick tattoo
peeking from the collar of a fellow worker,
or the far-fallen but ever-chipper leaf
that catches itself
in the drinking fountain's trough.
that it cooked the socks and stockings right off
a marathon of administrative feet –
that morning is a frigid morning,
a continuous April in London dawn,
masquerading as one long apocalyptic dusk,
where people who quietly covet more sleep
resent so deeply their puffy faces,
where the little red dome of a dusty alarm bell
mounted high on a factory wall
seems softer, and all the objects that we usually ignore
pine to be noticed - like the lovesick tattoo
peeking from the collar of a fellow worker,
or the far-fallen but ever-chipper leaf
that catches itself
in the drinking fountain's trough.
Where the horses fall
This is the dream
where the horses fall,
where bling colours tear
at the darkish turf,
where the playful grass,
innocently,
infantly,
snatches at eyes,
where the gargoyalan
megaphones
clamour hoarsely
at the track,
where the crystal
champagne flutes
snap clean
in the stem,
where your paramour
rises
and walks out
(a walking flower!),
where the horses fall,
where bling colours tear
at the darkish turf,
where the playful grass,
innocently,
infantly,
snatches at eyes,
where the gargoyalan
megaphones
clamour hoarsely
at the track,
where the crystal
champagne flutes
snap clean
in the stem,
rises
and walks out
(a walking flower!),
where high in the stands,
undercover,
undercover,
the wind is reading
a newspaper,
a newspaper,
where you are left feeling
a deep remorse
a deep remorse
for having watched,
and then for looking away.
and then for looking away.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Three Signs
On a bestial road, where both ways of traffic
flow downhill,
a real estate FOR SALE sign shows
the interior of a new home - and here I am
representing it
as a modern gallery, a space filled
with space, or an installation titled minimal,
at least for the first two or three
weeks, and thereafter
a kind of hereafter,
a working morgue to me.
A few doors up,
outside a wholly refurbished
apartment block
where families used to lived in a ratio
of four people to one room,
is another glossy morbid sign
of the times, promising in white italics
exclusivity in retirement
for those who might still be able
to swing in on the boom.
And then a third sign,
leaning against a concrete pole
a couple more houses along,
beginning to genuflect,
a little crucifix, cut from MDF
just to remind us
that death is an inclusive stroke
of ornamentation, meek and roadside,
who spends its afternoon
waiting to hail a cab, or to catch the bus.
flow downhill,
a real estate FOR SALE sign shows
the interior of a new home - and here I am
representing it
as a modern gallery, a space filled
with space, or an installation titled minimal,
at least for the first two or three
weeks, and thereafter
a kind of hereafter,
a working morgue to me.
A few doors up,
outside a wholly refurbished
apartment block
where families used to lived in a ratio
of four people to one room,
is another glossy morbid sign
of the times, promising in white italics
exclusivity in retirement
for those who might still be able
to swing in on the boom.
And then a third sign,
leaning against a concrete pole
a couple more houses along,
beginning to genuflect,
a little crucifix, cut from MDF
just to remind us
that death is an inclusive stroke
of ornamentation, meek and roadside,
who spends its afternoon
waiting to hail a cab, or to catch the bus.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Sunshine and Sugar Nights
In every clay bend of The Richardson
the flow is sown up
in green clouds of wet fabric.
The spirit of progress
chokes on the alchemy of insects.
There is the fuzz and buzz of misfits.
Spikes rush up
into the soft soles of heaven.
A rusting forty-four gallon drum
lies half-sunken in the scum.
Beneath the surface, a fitting conclusion
materializes and blooms
in the static water,
a breaking open of red nebulae,
a fomenting of brown thunderheads,
a leaking of things artesian.
The river has reached
its manifold ends,
giving way to a cache, hatch and brew,
to a stir of luminous chlorophyll.
We are moving away
from form.
We have landed our plan
to escape landscape,
metaphorically
leaping headlong
into the knee-deep freedom
of a looming swamp.
Both Peirce and Dewey
wrote of the woof and warp
of all thought –
and I suppose
we could mull and ponder
these symbols, too -
but the feeling here
is riverside,
and these words are the science
of those who love
to babble on,
after-hours,
like a chorus of frogs.
the flow is sown up
in green clouds of wet fabric.
The spirit of progress
chokes on the alchemy of insects.
There is the fuzz and buzz of misfits.
Spikes rush up
into the soft soles of heaven.
A rusting forty-four gallon drum
lies half-sunken in the scum.
Beneath the surface, a fitting conclusion
materializes and blooms
in the static water,
a breaking open of red nebulae,
a fomenting of brown thunderheads,
a leaking of things artesian.
The river has reached
its manifold ends,
giving way to a cache, hatch and brew,
to a stir of luminous chlorophyll.
We are moving away
from form.
We have landed our plan
to escape landscape,
metaphorically
leaping headlong
into the knee-deep freedom
of a looming swamp.
Both Peirce and Dewey
wrote of the woof and warp
of all thought –
and I suppose
we could mull and ponder
these symbols, too -
but the feeling here
is riverside,
and these words are the science
of those who love
to babble on,
after-hours,
like a chorus of frogs.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Meditation on Meditation
If this is not a poem
about poems
then it is about being
ground down
and fed up
into
the mouth of the old
guard-
eons old -
who waited on
the concrete bridge
for you,
the bridge
spanning difference.
Your mistake
was trying
to return
at the wrong time
to the old world,
where a bird
was a bird,
a cage door
was a cage door
and a bridge
was a bridge -
if there ever were
two worlds -
after all
you made
a questionable calculation
when you chose to lose
yourself
in someone else's
language,
in a game
of all
or nothing,
when you traded in a moment
of fear
for the feeling
of being
and let-it-be,
when you chose
to lose your self-
portrait
in someone else's
frame.
In the end
living
in a roundabout way
will always be
like rummaging
through someone else's drawer;
thank goodness
this is all
just a mixed-up metaphor.
about poems
then it is about being
ground down
and fed up
into
the mouth of the old
guard-
eons old -
who waited on
the concrete bridge
for you,
the bridge
spanning difference.
Your mistake
was trying
to return
at the wrong time
to the old world,
where a bird
was a bird,
a cage door
was a cage door
and a bridge
was a bridge -
if there ever were
two worlds -
after all
you made
a questionable calculation
when you chose to lose
yourself
in someone else's
language,
in a game
of all
or nothing,
when you traded in a moment
of fear
for the feeling
of being
and let-it-be,
when you chose
to lose your self-
portrait
in someone else's
frame.
In the end
living
in a roundabout way
will always be
like rummaging
through someone else's drawer;
thank goodness
this is all
just a mixed-up metaphor.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Defection
In the lift shaft
lives a cricket
entirely committed
to singing between floors.
On a mid-city sidewalk
a pinto plane tree
sows its false future
in a velvety drain -
see how the green heads
of hungry seedlings
poke up through the rusted grill.
And look at you!
Your grey theories
are turning blue
and all along the marbled reefs of sky
your eye is working
like a chisel.
lives a cricket
entirely committed
to singing between floors.
On a mid-city sidewalk
a pinto plane tree
sows its false future
in a velvety drain -
see how the green heads
of hungry seedlings
poke up through the rusted grill.
And look at you!
Your grey theories
are turning blue
and all along the marbled reefs of sky
your eye is working
like a chisel.
The Slender Man
I see him now, that shape in the half-distance
like an upper case letter of the alphabet
that they would not teach you -
though children, I struggle to comprehend
all your fear and fuss,
since Slender Man follows some of us
all day: he's there when we ride the bus,
or when when we walk the long way through the park,
and even when we get the window seat
at the cafe. Certainly, I concede
that there isn't very much for him to do
when the scenery is real
and there's no live feed
for him to fade to fizzy static grey,
and that it is possible for you
to spend your whole life reminding yourself
to look away; but then again,
what a world there is to look away at:
that grey uneven mountain,
that slender cat,
that sleeping stone,
that crooked fountain,
that baby's splotchy cheeks,
those dancers walking home,
that fat man who flicks his right hand
as he speaks.
like an upper case letter of the alphabet
that they would not teach you -
though children, I struggle to comprehend
all your fear and fuss,
since Slender Man follows some of us
all day: he's there when we ride the bus,
or when when we walk the long way through the park,
and even when we get the window seat
at the cafe. Certainly, I concede
that there isn't very much for him to do
when the scenery is real
and there's no live feed
for him to fade to fizzy static grey,
and that it is possible for you
to spend your whole life reminding yourself
to look away; but then again,
what a world there is to look away at:
that grey uneven mountain,
that slender cat,
that sleeping stone,
that crooked fountain,
that baby's splotchy cheeks,
those dancers walking home,
that fat man who flicks his right hand
as he speaks.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Face on the Wall
A shag
marooned above eye-level
for centuries.
The immoveable supervisor
of a disused door.
Face of stone
whose cheeks are a slow ripple,
whose mumbling lips
might be mistaken
for the lips of prayer.
Stone face,
whose mazy shadows
of Promethean beard
and sundial nose
shift
in perfect obedience
to remoteness.
Stoneface,
so true to your code,
so married to the breeze
whose skirts
of leaf-and-elmseed
gather and flutter
across your feet.
marooned above eye-level
for centuries.
The immoveable supervisor
of a disused door.
Face of stone
whose cheeks are a slow ripple,
whose mumbling lips
might be mistaken
for the lips of prayer.
Stone face,
whose mazy shadows
of Promethean beard
and sundial nose
shift
in perfect obedience
to remoteness.
Stoneface,
so true to your code,
so married to the breeze
whose skirts
of leaf-and-elmseed
gather and flutter
across your feet.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
The First Post
You can sandbag your eyes,
but that first bird
who doesn't need a wink of light
to start his pipes
will follow you,
you walloping rat,
all of your suburban life,
faithful
and sound in hope,
just in case
you cannot find your way
into the morning,
where the news
has changed,
where the water
is colder,
where your can of fresh heart
takes a lot of opening.
but that first bird
who doesn't need a wink of light
to start his pipes
will follow you,
you walloping rat,
all of your suburban life,
faithful
and sound in hope,
just in case
you cannot find your way
into the morning,
where the news
has changed,
where the water
is colder,
where your can of fresh heart
takes a lot of opening.
Friday, October 26, 2012
The Education Ministry's Abecedary
A is for Apple,
Professor Michael Apple,
but they would not let him speak
because A was already taken,
and so it goes:
A is for accountability initiatives,
proliferate
and ever more complete
in education,
where sham scientists
man the bridges
and claim to understand
the life of children
as one long performance
on someone else's stage.
C is for complex demand,
for which there are a limited number
of clinical solutions.
C is also for competition,
and counterpart
(classroom, school, inter-school,
state, national, international, etc.).
C is also for Callicles.
K is for key performance indicators,
essential for leaders
whose eagle eyes
are
for the most part
inattentive.
L is for learning jurisdiction.
M is for Mao.
N is for national averages,
as well as appearing twice
in the word inane.
P is for platform,
an alternative to a stage -
if you prefer to watch children fall
when they fail,
or when they disengage.
or when they disengage.
P is also for powerful pictures
of performance
for people who pretend
to be Charlemagne.
P is also for PISA,
that great empire
that spreads like Esperanto
into the honeycomb world of education,
including the industrial cities of China.
R is for rich experience,
and rich is another word for good.
S is for specialised learning experiences,
and surveillance,
and system,
and snake.
T is for talk of trusting teachers
once they have been
reformed
into accountability frameworks.
And that completes
the improved, more efficient version
of the alphabet.
You are welcome to leave the room
if you disagree with it.
Swamp Sonnet
The day was swampy. It rained the crimson heads
right off the azaleas. Every minute we were together
things were about to be said, but then they would slip away
and something odd would fall out of the sky, as it were:
a weather-beaten shoe caught up in a cranky tree,
a boat not cut to tackle the arrogant waves.
You said you liked my coat, and I happened to like yours
but couldn't say it. We smelt the smoke of a passing Cortina
whose dingy engine was dying for a service,
and when it rained again, for the seventh time, we fled
into the cut-out world of a pancake parlour
where we sat on pew-hard benches, beneath a stained glass window
that was tacky and beer-amber, and bore a hairline crack.
It seems such a shame to have to drag it all up now.
right off the azaleas. Every minute we were together
things were about to be said, but then they would slip away
and something odd would fall out of the sky, as it were:
a weather-beaten shoe caught up in a cranky tree,
a boat not cut to tackle the arrogant waves.
You said you liked my coat, and I happened to like yours
but couldn't say it. We smelt the smoke of a passing Cortina
whose dingy engine was dying for a service,
and when it rained again, for the seventh time, we fled
into the cut-out world of a pancake parlour
where we sat on pew-hard benches, beneath a stained glass window
that was tacky and beer-amber, and bore a hairline crack.
It seems such a shame to have to drag it all up now.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Cuckold
I dreamed last night that we got married again,
this time, in a mountain village, mucho and foreign,
where salt was scarce, and snow was deemed unsound,
and bootlicking pack-mules could read a human mind.
I turned up tieless, with no one at my side,
unshaven, with dirty hands I could not hide.
I carried an ornate rifle, which seemed to be the rage,
and I could not speak your tongue - the wild tongue of the village.
In a dark room, at a darker table, things followed your family’s plan,
and so I was somehow tricked into signing away
something more, and I knew that you were sleeping with another man,
one of the guests no doubt, but I married you anyway -
You, from under whose skirt butterflies were streaming, ever more
butterflies; and while this fact caught everyone's attention,
no one said a thing, even when there were butterflies galore -
in the circumstances, it seemed unmannerly to mention.
this time, in a mountain village, mucho and foreign,
where salt was scarce, and snow was deemed unsound,
and bootlicking pack-mules could read a human mind.
I turned up tieless, with no one at my side,
unshaven, with dirty hands I could not hide.
I carried an ornate rifle, which seemed to be the rage,
and I could not speak your tongue - the wild tongue of the village.
In a dark room, at a darker table, things followed your family’s plan,
and so I was somehow tricked into signing away
something more, and I knew that you were sleeping with another man,
one of the guests no doubt, but I married you anyway -
You, from under whose skirt butterflies were streaming, ever more
butterflies; and while this fact caught everyone's attention,
no one said a thing, even when there were butterflies galore -
in the circumstances, it seemed unmannerly to mention.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Quartz at Cradle Mountain
For a billion years
incomprehensible quartz,
brilliant white matter,
brilliant grey matter,
lost in thought
in the mountain's head,
until the matter
begins to be broken
down by a clutching root,
by the drizzle
of sorrow,
by the melted snow,
by heat.
Here is a certain fate,
a surfacing of the truth
in dolerite,
a grand idea
giving way to a frog-pond,
a making of room
for a luminous fungus,
a bared breast
adorned with lichen,
a chronic enterprise
grappled
apart
by a dawdling echidna.
incomprehensible quartz,
brilliant white matter,
brilliant grey matter,
lost in thought
in the mountain's head,
until the matter
begins to be broken
down by a clutching root,
by the drizzle
of sorrow,
by the melted snow,
by heat.
Here is a certain fate,
a surfacing of the truth
in dolerite,
a grand idea
giving way to a frog-pond,
a making of room
for a luminous fungus,
a bared breast
adorned with lichen,
a chronic enterprise
grappled
apart
by a dawdling echidna.
The apple tree is humming
The apple tree is humming
like a dynamo.
From its left-for-dead
branches,
from its perishing frame,
a white costume
worthy of a caliph
or a dancer,
has bloomed and settled.
The apple tree is humming
around my head,
a network fashioned
for mollification,
a crown of sound.
like a dynamo.
From its left-for-dead
branches,
from its perishing frame,
a white costume
worthy of a caliph
or a dancer,
has bloomed and settled.
Manoeuvring,
sedulous,
engrossed,
the bees
have proven yet again
to be
experts in the field.
They plug away
like tailors at a dress rehearsal.
The apple tree is humming
around my head,
a network fashioned
for mollification,
a crown of sound.
Prelude
And this mineral treat
is crystal of gypsum
in evaporite form,
like a foot
of bright snow
cast onto a crust
of fleshy stone,
ready to crumble
at a touch
to powder,
telling the world
for now
of the miracle
that it remains
sitting
uncrumbled
on the piano
where the player
practices
the same piece,
layer by layer,
atom by atom
phrase by phrase,
lattice by lattice,
until he and his troupe
of pliant fingers
are rock sure
of their work.
is crystal of gypsum
in evaporite form,
like a foot
of bright snow
cast onto a crust
of fleshy stone,
ready to crumble
at a touch
to powder,
telling the world
for now
of the miracle
that it remains
sitting
uncrumbled
on the piano
where the player
practices
the same piece,
layer by layer,
atom by atom
phrase by phrase,
lattice by lattice,
until he and his troupe
of pliant fingers
are rock sure
of their work.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Misunderstanding
Standing over me
like some
heavy,
like some stone
eye,
like some common
sense,
is the question
of understanding.
I recall something -
or rather
do I call something?
After all,
I can't be certain
that I understand it
anymore
or ever understood it
in the first place -
that place
below it,
where I could be
the one
who held it aloft,
from a pit,
or could look up
into the belly
of it,
like some sage mechanic
of stone.
What exactly
I recall
is the dusty Paz
writing something
about how
poetry
says what language
refuses to say.
What sense
he was making
I can't exactly say.
Perhaps
he did not say it
after all - and
he said
all
there was for him
not to say -
but what I do recall
is having a sense,
of understanding it,
that day,
when a tear
imagined
itself
in my stone eye,
all because
I understood
someone else's
something
that made no sense to say.
like some
heavy,
like some stone
eye,
like some common
sense,
is the question
of understanding.
I recall something -
or rather
do I call something?
After all,
I can't be certain
that I understand it
anymore
or ever understood it
in the first place -
that place
below it,
where I could be
the one
who held it aloft,
from a pit,
or could look up
into the belly
of it,
like some sage mechanic
of stone.
What exactly
I recall
is the dusty Paz
writing something
about how
poetry
says what language
refuses to say.
What sense
he was making
I can't exactly say.
Perhaps
he did not say it
after all - and
he said
all
there was for him
not to say -
but what I do recall
is having a sense,
of understanding it,
that day,
when a tear
imagined
itself
in my stone eye,
all because
I understood
someone else's
something
that made no sense to say.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Dining With The Dead
As cryptic as an undertaker,
a blue-tongued lizard
makes his way along sun-filled alleys
between older graves.
He is the sleeper that awoke.
He is the afterthought
of a boundless star, emerging,
burnished and slow,
when even death has moved away.
He reaches a clearing -
the beginning of palomino clay
dotted with the frosted shards
of pulverized vases -
but he turns away,
thinking it better
to work undercover
in tilted tombs
where esculent snails
hide their planets
from the makers of big religions.
a blue-tongued lizard
makes his way along sun-filled alleys
between older graves.
He is the sleeper that awoke.
He is the afterthought
of a boundless star, emerging,
burnished and slow,
when even death has moved away.
He reaches a clearing -
the beginning of palomino clay
dotted with the frosted shards
of pulverized vases -
but he turns away,
thinking it better
to work undercover
in tilted tombs
where esculent snails
hide their planets
from the makers of big religions.
Canary
Uniquely shaded
in standard yellow,
the pet canary mounts a fine case
for the existence of a Macaronesian
world-beyond-cage.
Unable to stick to the point,
When singing, the entire bird
becomes a throat
whose post-water canticles
range in genre
from alarm to charm,
from staccato accusation
to theremin,
from vigilant warm-up,
to Thumbelina diva cantata-cantata-cantata.
in standard yellow,
the pet canary mounts a fine case
for the existence of a Macaronesian
world-beyond-cage.
Unable to stick to the point,
he skips from perch to perch
performing a brilliant routine
of Baroque insanity.
When singing, the entire bird
becomes a throat
whose post-water canticles
range in genre
from alarm to charm,
from staccato accusation
to theremin,
from vigilant warm-up,
to Thumbelina diva cantata-cantata-cantata.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Safety in Numbers
You know who we are.
We share the same yellow bandages.
We hold each other's hand.
We drink from the same cloudy cup.
We piss, bright as a sunset, into the same tin.
We each take a greying shoe,
one the right, the other the left.
A long time ago, in a distant galaxy
we were the same person,
neat hair parted down the middle,
unafraid of the others,
as happy as a blackbird on a spire.
But people split up
and now we are two,
certain of both sides,
watching both doors,
keeping the chair warm for each other,
never alone,
taking turns to check the weather,
sharing envelops,
accepting the apology of the other,
fighting over the same heart,
splitting the bill,
finishing each other's sentences,
watching both doors.
We share the same yellow bandages.
We hold each other's hand.
We drink from the same cloudy cup.
We piss, bright as a sunset, into the same tin.
We each take a greying shoe,
one the right, the other the left.
A long time ago, in a distant galaxy
we were the same person,
neat hair parted down the middle,
unafraid of the others,
as happy as a blackbird on a spire.
But people split up
and now we are two,
certain of both sides,
watching both doors,
keeping the chair warm for each other,
never alone,
taking turns to check the weather,
sharing envelops,
accepting the apology of the other,
fighting over the same heart,
splitting the bill,
finishing each other's sentences,
watching both doors.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Grain of Truth
Wood sings in a candid language.
It sings to the furnace of the eye,
revealing its orphic folds:
out of a chair, a table, a robe,
the veritable layers emerge,
sartorial, scrupulous,
a kind of cambium diary
formed in the limbs or the bole of the tree,
a lowdown told in ballads
of rift and burr,
told in far-off galaxies,
in auburn and honeycomb,
told in the work of a frost crack
or a sun scold,
told in a carbon fabric
that flies, chatoyant,
from the spool of time,
told in the dark, tempting feathers
of partridge wood,
told in the dance of maple flame,
told in cloud,
told in bird's eye,
told in the caricature faces
that arrive in a play of knots,
told around mirrors,
in lost walking sticks,
on doors that never open,
told in the singing timber
of broken violins,
as generous to the spirit
as quinine, cinnamon, or aspirin.
It sings to the furnace of the eye,
revealing its orphic folds:
out of a chair, a table, a robe,
the veritable layers emerge,
sartorial, scrupulous,
a kind of cambium diary
formed in the limbs or the bole of the tree,
a lowdown told in ballads
of rift and burr,
told in far-off galaxies,
in auburn and honeycomb,
told in the work of a frost crack
or a sun scold,
told in a carbon fabric
that flies, chatoyant,
from the spool of time,
told in the dark, tempting feathers
of partridge wood,
told in the dance of maple flame,
told in cloud,
told in bird's eye,
told in the caricature faces
that arrive in a play of knots,
told around mirrors,
in lost walking sticks,
on doors that never open,
told in the singing timber
of broken violins,
as generous to the spirit
as quinine, cinnamon, or aspirin.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Tribute to Felix Baumgartner
When a man is falling to Earth
from the heavens,
he does not pose
as the shadow of his future self.
He begins to spin.
He becomes his former self complete.
At the top
he is a top,
standing only
because his life
was secretly revolving
his entire life,
over and over,
too quick to notice,
quick enough to stand.
But when he is falling,
his life says to him:
now it is your turn to spin –
and, as if to prove
that satire and love
are one and the same
thing,
not just a spin,
it says it over and over.
from the heavens,
he does not pose
as the shadow of his future self.
He begins to spin.
He becomes his former self complete.
At the top
he is a top,
standing only
because his life
was secretly revolving
his entire life,
over and over,
too quick to notice,
quick enough to stand.
But when he is falling,
his life says to him:
now it is your turn to spin –
and, as if to prove
that satire and love
are one and the same
thing,
not just a spin,
it says it over and over.
The New Neighbour
So when a man's numbers are shaken out
of a lotto machine, he buys a handful of lush
and undulating acres of Tasmanian park
in the north-west; and then, as if to make his mark,
he takes to the bark of the Noachian tree
at the end of his paddock with a can of kerosene.
Do you remember that tree, the one he burned?
Although broken at the crown from having caught
a thunderbolt for sport, it's hulking neck
remained as thick as a tree is at its base
when it hits a hundred feet, and still
it sprouted whole trees from its hoary face.
Did he think it was Ozymandias, with a sneering brow?
I wonder, did a kookaburra, from a kingly height
drive him mad with its burlesque laughter,
while far below he enslaved himself to his cow?
Did he think the birds had built a Tower of Babel?
Or was it just a simple act of spite?
Stuff it all! What do intentions matter
when stacked beside that hallowed and hollowed frame.
You know, it smouldered away like Troy for a week,
then held to the reef of the sky, a faraway wreck
that took a shake of years to finally shatter,
and many more to hand Van Diemen his claim.
of a lotto machine, he buys a handful of lush
and undulating acres of Tasmanian park
in the north-west; and then, as if to make his mark,
he takes to the bark of the Noachian tree
at the end of his paddock with a can of kerosene.
Do you remember that tree, the one he burned?
Although broken at the crown from having caught
a thunderbolt for sport, it's hulking neck
remained as thick as a tree is at its base
when it hits a hundred feet, and still
it sprouted whole trees from its hoary face.
Did he think it was Ozymandias, with a sneering brow?
I wonder, did a kookaburra, from a kingly height
drive him mad with its burlesque laughter,
while far below he enslaved himself to his cow?
Did he think the birds had built a Tower of Babel?
Or was it just a simple act of spite?
Stuff it all! What do intentions matter
when stacked beside that hallowed and hollowed frame.
You know, it smouldered away like Troy for a week,
then held to the reef of the sky, a faraway wreck
that took a shake of years to finally shatter,
and many more to hand Van Diemen his claim.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Two Different Deaths
Him that dieth in the city shall the dogs eat,
and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat,
but in the city, before he dieth, he shall be kept awake
by the classless barking of neurotic dogs
all through the deadlocked, bourbon-coloured night,
whereas in the field,
he shall sleep soundly until the day he dieth,
or, on the few occasions when he can't sleep,
he shall marvel at the scale of the howling wind
or the rain that presses the full span of its body,
its head and shoulders too,
against his melted, lightless cottage window,
having bothered to come all the way up from the coast
just to visit him, and without being called,
like a dog that never knew of city patios,
and he shall wonder where in the gorgeous hell of it all
the parliament of fowls that govern the air,
those same birds that will one day eat out his sides,
have gone to hide their cranky little heads.
and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat,
but in the city, before he dieth, he shall be kept awake
by the classless barking of neurotic dogs
all through the deadlocked, bourbon-coloured night,
whereas in the field,
he shall sleep soundly until the day he dieth,
or, on the few occasions when he can't sleep,
he shall marvel at the scale of the howling wind
or the rain that presses the full span of its body,
its head and shoulders too,
against his melted, lightless cottage window,
having bothered to come all the way up from the coast
just to visit him, and without being called,
like a dog that never knew of city patios,
and he shall wonder where in the gorgeous hell of it all
the parliament of fowls that govern the air,
those same birds that will one day eat out his sides,
have gone to hide their cranky little heads.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
The Wall of Words
Two philosophers
making a wall of words between them,
a wall so hard
that it would stop a train of thought
travelling at high speed,
a wall, the completion of which
provides them both
with serious relief,
a wall, thank god, that is always beyond
the perception of a dog,
a wall to which they can press
a Buddha-sized ear
and listen . . .
listen for the lament of the other,
listen for an argument with a spouse,
listen for a joke which they, too, can understand,
listen for a rasp.
Two philosophers
making a wall of words between them,
a wall of words
through which certain other words
will always pass.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Happiness is the Glass Juicer
Happiness
is the glass juicer
we bought at the tip shop.
Its glass is so thick
and heavy
that it does not slip
when in use.
Its lip is so big
that it can hold
a full cup of juice.
It takes in the light,
wan or bright,
and turns it
into
mathematics.
It doesn't want to leave us.
It likes its dark corner
of the bottom shelf
under the sink.
It is equally content
to wait upside down
on the rack.
It reminds me of
my grandmother -
the only person
I ever met
who graduated
from a retirement village
and moved back home.
The oranges on my tree
now grow in bunches
and the limes,
well,
they all wrestle
for a place on the branch.
is the glass juicer
we bought at the tip shop.
Its glass is so thick
and heavy
that it does not slip
when in use.
Its lip is so big
that it can hold
a full cup of juice.
It takes in the light,
wan or bright,
and turns it
into
mathematics.
It doesn't want to leave us.
It likes its dark corner
of the bottom shelf
under the sink.
It is equally content
to wait upside down
on the rack.
It reminds me of
my grandmother -
the only person
I ever met
who graduated
from a retirement village
and moved back home.
Happiness
is the glass juicer
we bought at the tip shop.
The oranges on my tree
now grow in bunches
and the limes,
well,
they all wrestle
for a place on the branch.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Frankenstein
You sit through a loveless day,
watching your garden
through a streaky window.
You see your bone-white
wheelbarrow
leaning against a tree,
upright on its two handles:
a mule performing
a circus trick.
That night, you find yourself
on top of a moonlit hill,
gathering black rocks
for your endless wall.
Plovers laugh.
The barrow is full.
You heave your load,
and Crack!
one of the barrow's wooden arms
snaps clean off
and over she goes.
Rocks leap out like rabbits
and dash for the dark grass.
(Did they spend an eternity
planning their escape?)
And so
you head downhill
for home,
nursing the broken arm of the barrow
like it is your own.
watching your garden
through a streaky window.
You see your bone-white
wheelbarrow
leaning against a tree,
upright on its two handles:
a mule performing
a circus trick.
That night, you find yourself
on top of a moonlit hill,
gathering black rocks
for your endless wall.
Plovers laugh.
The barrow is full.
You heave your load,
and Crack!
one of the barrow's wooden arms
snaps clean off
and over she goes.
Rocks leap out like rabbits
and dash for the dark grass.
(Did they spend an eternity
planning their escape?)
And so
you head downhill
for home,
nursing the broken arm of the barrow
like it is your own.
Out and About
The morning after
the first scortcher
we go to the park for a kick.
In the shade, baby oaks
are climbing out
of black acorns -
little green cocktail umbrellas.
Five or six kicks in
the rain arrives -
big icy drops
that get to the skin
through two layers of shirt.
For the rest of the day
my shoulders
are a wire coat hanger
hanging from a bare birch
in Siberian winds.
My icicle shins
snap and refreeze
each time I take
a step.
We go to the local Lego show
at the old
convent
where my inspired
sons
build a Caribbean scene.
There I spot
the skinny Lego pro
guarding his replica
of the Hindenburg.
He is in short sleeves.
He sips from a chilled can
of diet cola.
- Let's go, lads!
- Where to, Dad?
- How about the indoor pool
at the rec centre?
the first scortcher
we go to the park for a kick.
In the shade, baby oaks
are climbing out
of black acorns -
little green cocktail umbrellas.
Five or six kicks in
the rain arrives -
big icy drops
that get to the skin
through two layers of shirt.
For the rest of the day
my shoulders
are a wire coat hanger
hanging from a bare birch
in Siberian winds.
My icicle shins
snap and refreeze
each time I take
a step.
We go to the local Lego show
at the old
convent
where my inspired
sons
build a Caribbean scene.
There I spot
the skinny Lego pro
guarding his replica
of the Hindenburg.
He is in short sleeves.
He sips from a chilled can
of diet cola.
- Let's go, lads!
- Where to, Dad?
- How about the indoor pool
at the rec centre?
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Ode to Waves
I do not live by the seaside,
but in you, waves, I have faith.
In your break and splash, in your rise and ruin,
I hear the words: It hardly matters.
I admire your practiced approach.
Sometimes you don your grey uniform,
sometimes you wear the green one with the shining buttons.
You calculate perfectly, and always with ease.
I once hired an Argentine plasterer who reminded me of you.
He spoke of long lunches with other tradesmen, at makeshift tables,
with local wine, and a radio always at his side.
You, waves, who trade junk and real estate with dry land,
you never stop to ponder the deal you are getting.
And what if days of work drafting up a heavy swell
should come to nothing?
You simply shrug your shoulders and take a welcome spell .
but in you, waves, I have faith.
In your break and splash, in your rise and ruin,
I hear the words: It hardly matters.
I admire your practiced approach.
Sometimes you don your grey uniform,
sometimes you wear the green one with the shining buttons.
You calculate perfectly, and always with ease.
I once hired an Argentine plasterer who reminded me of you.
He spoke of long lunches with other tradesmen, at makeshift tables,
with local wine, and a radio always at his side.
You, waves, who trade junk and real estate with dry land,
you never stop to ponder the deal you are getting.
And what if days of work drafting up a heavy swell
should come to nothing?
You simply shrug your shoulders and take a welcome spell .
Tomorrow
Already, tomorrow is stitching itself together.
Right now, it is busy flicking through a case of lenses.
There is still time left for it to burn a few old canvases,
to thaw out a woolly mammoth,
to toss a few old lamp fonts into the tip.
You long to tell it that you yourself are not quite ready
(a cello sleeps in the corner, kindness sleeps in your heart)
but what does tomorrow care if you have fallen behind!
Here, look through this crack in the wall:
see how tomorrow just throws us an unpuzzled glance,
spits in its hands,
and shakes out another patchwork landscape.
Counselling for the Stressed and the Alienated
If you live in a street for long enough, you eventually come to know most of what goes on there. You need not be a detective, nor a gossip, nor even the neighbourly type. Local knowledge has a knack of finding its way to you, so long as you stick around.
On the corner at the end of my street, just two doors up from the house where the baby died last summer, is a particularly neat and well maintained double story Victorian terrace. It has a bull-nose awning with black iron lattice work that stretches out over the pavement for the full span of the corner. The doors and windows seem freshly painted in a dark burgundy colour, as they have seemed for the last two decades. On both street frontages appear identical small brass plaques that read: R.D.Winston and Associates, Counselling for the Stressed and the Alienated, followed by their phone number and an email address.
I have not actually seen the occupants of the house. On one occasion, however, when I was walking home past the property, I happened to hear them. The lights were shining through the heavily frosted glass of their windows. A John Coltrane album was playing loudly enough for the music to be heard in the street. The song was 'Soul Eyes' - one of my personal favourites - so naturally I paused to listen to it. At the time, I was carrying in each hand a grey plastic bag full of groceries. It was dusk. Other than getting the milk and the sliced ham into the refrigerator at home, I really did not need to be anywhere. I recall feeling the urge to enter the premises and join the occupants, whoever they might be. I felt certain that once inside, I would find a bottle of gin, a bottle of tonic and a bowl of ice on a mahogany sideboard, and two gentle faces discussing something intriguing.
When the song finished, I came to my senses. I continued on my way home.
About that house on the corner, there is nothing more that I can add - with the exception of a few facts that may or may not interest you. Given the history of our neighbourhood and the design of the building, we can assume that the house was once a store, or possibly even a hotel. It is said that at one time there was a pub on every street corner in our suburb. The other piece of information that I have for you is not so much fact as speculation. I once overheard two women in the library discussing how R.D.Winston and Associates are just a front. One of the women was saying that the owners of the house dreamed up the counselling service so that they could claim their mortgage repayments on their tax as a business expense. Quite annoyed by the idea that someone would make the effort to erect little brass plaques with the intention of deceiving the tax commissioner, I made up my mind to find out the truth of the matter. Over the course of the next few days, I made several calls to R.D.Winston and Associates, hoping to enquire about making an appointment to receive counselling. I even devised a story about how I was feeling lonely and alienated. But each time I called, nobody answered the phone. I left a dozen or so messages on their voice mail. Then I sent them emails, but again I received no reply.
For several weeks afterwards, my blood boiled. I lay awake at night imagining them listening to the messages. I imagined that they found relief at the end of a long day, as they cleared the message bank and the email account, laughing and making jokes at the expense of the would-be clients. I decided that this was probably a daily ritual for them, listening to and reading the desperate messages of alienated and stressed people who sought their professional assistance - people who would doubtless be left puzzled and insecure when their calls and their emails were ignored. How could R.D.Winston and Associates - whoever they were - be so callous as to add to the suffering of these unfortunate souls? The more I thought about the cruel scenario, the more compelled I felt to do something about it.
In the end, I did nothing. To be sure, I stewed over it, and lost sleep, and now I am even writing about it, which, I guess, is tantamount to doing nothing at all. I still live in the same street, just a few minutes walk from that same house. With its little brass plaques and its bullnose verandah, it is still perched up there on the corner, seemingly freshly painted. One day I will find the strength and the courage to knock on their door and demand an explanation. And what if they are to invite me in, offer me a gin and tonic, and start playing a John Coltrane album? Well, in the unlikely event that this happens, I will stand my ground and demand an explanation for their insensitivity.
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