INSTEAD
was looking
for the bucket
but the bucket
was over
my head
needed to spell
the word
ignoramus
but
being a sort
of poetry
thingy
spelt
an entire thesaurus
instead
INSTEAD
was looking
for the bucket
but the bucket
was over
my head
needed to spell
the word
ignoramus
but
being a sort
of poetry
thingy
spelt
an entire thesaurus
instead
KEY
Hey! No trespassing
Do not assume
you have
right
of way
automatic forgiveness
can fiddle around
in my innermost particles
until
blue in the face
no, not
on my watch
not on my watch
but hey,
hang on a momento
you say
brought a key
came with master
opens
everything
can unlock things here
that I
have grown immune to
that I am totally unaware of
will take me magic carpet
ride mind
to a
special place
down a
hidden passageway
been bolted since childhood
which is, I do
freely admit
a very long time
this shifts
things a bit
or
to be gracious, shifts
everything considerably
kind of
alters my perspective
go
full
Omar Khayyam
trespassing
no trespassing
what’s
mine
is yours
and yours
is mine
on
my watch
automatic forgiveness
forever
and this night
SHRIKE
first laid
eyes
on
you
you love
imprinted me
like a
new-born
chicken
and here I
am
stuck in
a novel going
nowhere
sprearing
useless pages
on a spike
as if
I were a
horrendous shrike
tiny
but different bird
altogether
Vlad Impaler
of all
God’s little
creatures
come
pull this stake
out of my
heart!
I am
not a patch
on Shelley’s
Skylark
Keat’s
Nightingale
his
consummate Hyperion
or novel
of other worlds infused
with these mythologies
GOLD STANDARD
you are
the gold standard
best
touchstone
asked for a handout
you chopped
my head off
split
the atom
stole
several body parts
oh my staccato life subject
to this debt slavery
roll over credit
what was now
roll over
play dead
or actually die
all for a few scrappy
coins in the offing
kind of
smaller
than atoms
and me
under such pressure to
edit down
this poem
get it in tune, right tone
sufficiently complicit
in every single way
ROOM
stet
Heraclitus you are wrong
this man
cannot step
into that bed
river mibd a river
back up a bit
let’s forget media res
simply
start at
the beginning
virtual particles abounding
no hope of
even one
actually actualizing
promise of this moment
never to be realized
come and gone
so many wave fronts
from bed to couch and
back again
washing over me
you
by now
sleeping serenely
me maybe
astral travelling
as far as I can tell
room to
expand, manoeuvre
room
for doubt
here we
make love, don’t
make love
roll two lovely snake eyes
so you may guess
which
forked path
possibilities, probablities,
green light
for go, red
for full stop
in this little ecosystem, tiny
echochamber things
horribly resonant
yes
roll those bones
roll
with
the flow
tick the will
they won’t they
take what’s
in the box
you know
whose doomed cat
is waiting
in that box
the whole nature of
connection, entanglement
now
premised on our moment
and what other, kinder worlds
have decided for themselves
have themselves
found out
let them
film the morning after
still through a lens
of blessed
enchantment
Pan panning with magical
camera across
the mystical space
that will
always
be
her bedroom
for the record (record of
flautist playing
the firsf
time I ever saw
her face)
nothing
to see here

CONVERGED
all points converging
here
to be converted
or maybe
being in the South
everything
is separating
and
I’m just
looking upside down
doing the TS tarot
hanged man thing
worm
looking up at me
must think me
a skygod down
for day
of revelation
need to do the eeh-aah Doppler
taste
test to
get our highest quality
low down
meanwhile the world
is locked in court case
jury
back inside for this
SEVER
cathedrals soar
mines delve
need t
satisfy our quota
of earthly stockpile
celestial metal
water air earth fire
what soon will
be your soul’s sword
forging
in the flames
when the blade gleams
in arc of
night combat
stars will be caught
their eternal beams severed
MAGIC MIRROR
magic mirror
on the wall
is not
this mirror
at all
at all
in this mirror curse
of Other is more subtle
than ranting
Malificent or
Dorian Gray
beautiful tainted (rapturously
so)
Oh this is
life’s work
work here slow,
brush
stroke after
brush stroke
every revisit a sense of
shift
of movement of
time’s accumulation
time
having
such a good eye, such
a fine touch
pixel after pixel
we move from promise,
to potential
to sharp revelation
(the shadow
that was ever could
not now
be more clear)
something
in those final
subtle touches
translation into speech
that tells the whole story
something flesh not
marble
bone not bronze
soon to here appear
SWEET
ordinarily
poem is sweet
but here
there are
dark places
and terrible spaces
and so
tread lightly
as you
consider yourself warned
and what
is “sweet” anyway
how to
best define it
as I am drawn to you
as bee
to pollen, wasp
to honey
such a sight you
are beautifully polarized
nothing looked
ever better
to these compound eyes