Tag Archives: comic

IF ONLY (LIFE WERE A TAD MORE POSTMODERN)

IF ONLY (LIFE WERE A TAD
MORE POSTMODERN)

They put the poet on reality television.

I did not get
to see the programme;
analyse the working
out of that proposition.

what was done
in the shower.

Caught on CCTV
for all eternity.

But I think I can hazard
a guess
how it pans out
as poetic expression:

the poet
dies (of course)
as a figure
of tragic exclusion

and the poem, given
space and time,
gets over its grief

rides out into the sunset
with a sestina side-saddle

and everyone, cast
and crew,
all set to
live their lives not
stoically but
much happily ever after

figure
they might need
a script
one where some
budding your therapist
pays off
the mortgage
attending to each psyche
with radical
depression therapy.

A CLUEDO (HAVEN’T GOT)

A CLUEDO (HAVEN’T GOT)

deduced it in no
time

saw it clearly it was
either Plum that went
shapeshifter
      eliding, gliding
between
the kitchen (pots
still greasy)
               and the games room

turning up at the table
through
     the fourth wall

or could be
Mustard, that die-
hard Imperialist with the
old Western front Vickers
water
     -cooled machine gun

defending the pantry against
whatever
       latest horde of savages

took out Ms Scarlett  and
Ms White

ebony and ivory in
their delightful negligees

wandering aimless into
his line of sight
             in persuance of
their tryst

or Green could have done it
C of E but some old Catholicism
at root there

         adding a twist of hemlock
to that holy wine
(cardinal
   not working out, we’ll
smoke that
one out
               bring in another)

or someone in the garage
with rolls royce style
handy wrench

           call murder murder
a spade a spade

a wrench a bloody brain-
fragment spattered wrench

and me
    with my candle card yet again

with
such bad eyesight
     cannot make out a thing