CRYPTIC
rearranged the furniture
in my head
(a few dry walls
had to knock out)
started to resemble
a mausoleum
which
so startled me
ended up
forgetting entirely
about my bed
and how and why
ended up in
the first place
fighting with this allegory
but did sleep
and collided with
all I had
moved and misplaced
throughout
my dream
in dream
no GPS no
proximity scream
things as they present themselves
could hardly be
more cryptic
ORIGIN STORY
I have totally
equipped this poem
for survival
to be a
lean,
mean
break-
dancing machine
sharp in tooth
incredibly soft in paw entirely.
PLAGUE
after years of boarding
and other water torture
he wrote his poems
to continue
the struggle
ease
his pain
avoiding
the word “raindrop”
like the plague
CHAIN
For you, Sir,
who have
seen been everything
and so much besides
I am here to announce
my bright design:
a
Seraph
in a clam
can
evolve to
the summit
Sirrah,
can do what it can
cutting out
the middle man
whose passes
everything up
down
down
up
in the chain
of command
STEAM
let’s make
fire together
in
our little boat
bottom of our boat
when
the sea rushes
in
we may drown
well drown
unless the fire
the water
go
for each other
turn us
to steam
COMPOSITION
pass me your pen
and I shall note down
those distances
the chalk on the blackboard
having list its imperative
the writing
on the wall changing
the moment it
gets written
the truth of relativity
not yet board-dustered off
yet already
done and dusted
and how many tiny white
flecks
look like motion-
captured stars, galaxies
in their movement?
at if
squeezing
the truth out of us,
pinching our analogies
the Universe were
writing us
writing the Universe itself
putting us
into, pulling us
out oh the picture
trying to figure out
which composition
works best
which
makes the
most sense
CHATTER
the forest chatters
so much
to talk about
stuff
every tree and
squirrel
needs to know
and you
keen to listen in
lacking the equipment
to tune into
those airwaves
wondering how
much you
have
missed
how key
these messages
going over
your head
(in a
manner of speaking)
IN AN IDEAL WORLD
fishing
for jellyfish
wouldn’t know
how to start
unless
common sense dictate
candy rod
sugar sinker
gelatinous hook
baited with
(in an
ideal world)
strawberry cream and
vanilla custard
KUNG FU SOUL
float
on wires
I do
free spirit
angeling
hanging
below
the ceiling
skipping
across rooves
am a
great master of
many lives
from
ancient
times
beautiful spirit
harpy
of bad, worst dreams
badly dubbed
I speak
out
of synch
but my words
are memorable
let
the instruments play
string, woodwind
at the
moment of impact
the whole
of creation
resounds to
my
crouching turtle
hidden
salamander tune
AUTOPILOT
“Vada a bordo, cazzo!”
I was admiring a metaphor but then it sank
not in wine-dark ocean, somewhere between Charybdis and Scylla
but in turquoise sea, shallow, placid
verging on perfect island.
Earlier
the Captain himself had
put us on autopilot, too suave a narcissus
not to entirely confuse skirting sexual danger with
courting maritime disaster
and complete disaster was it too, for all the beauty of vista and shallowness of water, though not without its
comedy of cruise-control leading to full
Groucho Marx-moment of
tumble into lifeboat (what could be
more providential? did he not think, was
He not reminded of
Freud’s philosophy of the ship and
all of those jokes about being in
a boat and not finding the boatman?)
What serendipity should we ignore, dare
we escape without
risking the Olympus (albeit these days that
Poseidon, at least has grown so tiny)?
Always the softness of the parallels
that rise to haunt us
even though
we did not see
doomed forever to fail to see them
no matter how careful
we navigate
carefully, frantically, at
full panic station scan the horizon.
poems 2 die for