poem – Page 213 – poems 2 die for

IDYLL

IDYLL

got woken up this
morning

Sun streaming in
massive chattering
outside my
window

birds
thronging, nesting all
over the farm, thank God!

not
machine-guns

BREAK

BREAK

so much fragility

things collapsing
falling apart

nothing as fragile
as a poem,
however

even

the lines

break

LISTENING

LISTENING

am listening
waiting to hear
what you

have
to say

all ears
but do not ask me
to press this numbered
button or
the other

as if a golden time
will suddenly dawn
wealth
will be released

if largesse came my way
would not know
what
to do with it

ditto
kindness

outside spray of flowers
drooing from a tree
steal all
my attention with
their cerise intensity

such that
words get re-defined
beauty in my
linguistic ineptitude
poetic
incompleteness

press one for
whole picture

           two for duality
if you happen to agree or
strongly, poisonously
                             would adopt
a position
   entirely contrary

as contradictory as any
reader might be

MARVELLOUS

MARVELLOUS

took me a long time
to find marvellous

had to
go small small

under a tin roof
give away
most
of my books

linger over
every word
in the ones that
I saved

notice the
changes in
the landscapes
that came

TAKEN LIGHTLY

TAKEN LIGHTLY

e = mc Hammer

smack that anvil albert
till it gets red hot,
gives you a packaged beat

you can rattle off your
lyrics to

stuff ever ready like shirt
covered in his mother’s spaghetti

yes, mr em and m rabbit
I am talking to you

something light and street savvy
but pointed and existential

the chords in the scale
and the riff being the things

that might put in the mood
for a
theory of everything

it all
sewn together by
multi-dimensional string

EVERYWHERE

EVERYWHERE

I turn into
a statue

I pop up everywhere.
Timebound, my punctuality
is whenever
you least expect me.

I converse with vipers;
chat to elapids

see me in a debate here
with file snake, puffadder
and cobra

no time for niceties of argument
these guys,
low on rhetorical nuance
on tactical subtlety

jump right to their conclusion
flying in the face of counter-
premise
or inconvenient fact

and yet, something in me
herpetological too,
in awe of their
sublime
beauty

agog
at their wisdom

shedding
my skin.

WON

WON

leaves us
for dead

the speed
at which
you think

jumping from
premise to conclusion
faster than
agitated light

from idea
to idea by
sublime association

faster than the feed
in a multi-
barrel machine-gun

thus do we see
logic quickly conquered,
every argument won

LITTLE LIZARD

LITTLE LIZARD

“The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in history. Sign this release. Anything happens to you, we’re not responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry.” Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder

I am a little lizard
in a time of final, feral dinosaurs

they shut down the children’s library Mr Bradbury,
where I first read you

i think that they imagine
if they lock the doors
they burn ideas

children it seems
do not need, should
not have
their minds expanded

no sublime terrors to
enrich the joy and horror
of their being

if I ask them regarding
the evolution of mind,
the fulfilling of the species

they tell me

this is not my place
this is not the time

bite
and swallow

there is no legend of a carnivore
greater than the nation

and my dead end is
a supreme blessing

to those who dictate
the terms of all illiterate life.

COME

COME

come

let me
show you darkness

what we have here
what you have
here

is
blindness

not
the same
thing at all

HOW

HOW

how can I possibly
still love you
still
want you

still imagine you
with me
right now

now
now
now!

so close, both of
us, the two of us,

would agree we feel embedded
wrapped up in each
other’s arms:
the ultimate package

but
this
is
not real, is pure
supposition, ghost conjecture

me here
alone in these words, with

this poem

you,
as ever,

so far away