Tuesday, 30 May 2017

4:54

Strange
Surgeon
Lays out
Outside-in pump, 37
Uncased
Wide variability -
Murmur to thunder
By the patient's pillow
Love is
Extraction
Operation-room humour
4:54
Just a dream
There's no tumour
But the morning static
Feels like
Failed Sheherezade's
First midnight
In the slaughterhouse
Of dismembered lives
That my emotion,
A frenzied
Rattling
Of the cage
Could rip apart.



Friday, 26 May 2017

Throwaway

Late spring
Thrust
I bite my lip
Cough up my mind
Anonymous,
Warden of sanity
Incorp. soul
Greets 
Strangers
In the open garden
Keeps the shutters
Closed
Talks Japanese maple
Dreams 
Of biting 
Into the bittersweet fruit
Of the ancient tree
That stands
Up on the fort
One climb
One fall
Risk
Such alluring
Throwaway freedom
When life is
Stop/start
Mechanical deer
Oblivious
That the city park

Is a wall. 

Wednesday, 24 May 2017

Following

I fall 
Into step 
Beside him
Rhythmic ease
Is his heart in sync with his beat?
I'd be content 
Following
Following train tracks,
Watching butterflies
But 
This is no country 
For trespassers,
Where he goes 
I can't follow
I don't know 
His species
So I'll call him 'friend'
Hey! 
Friend! 
What is it like 
To move 
With the languid grace 
Of a cat 
Who assumes
Time is just 
A sheep 
Grazing on a hill?
He's working out a route 
Conversant in the economics
Of a swimmer's 
Choice between 
Streamline
And breath
Late evening 
Traffic will sing him home
I head 
Into 
A different spring
And don't look back
To check 
Which master 

My dog-like heart 
Will be following

Anatomy


Spring reaches into me
With mnemonic tendrils
That seek 
Never bloom
Milky reflection
The self-absorbed face 
Of the pound
shrinks 
expands
Spring reaches 
into me
With cold, 
double-jointed fingers
She knows 
My anatomy.
Knows that beyond 
The ribcage
She might still grab 
My heart
As it hangs 
An upside-down robin
Obstinate child 
She'll hide 
In the emptying well
Until time 
Has lost 
It's withered crown
Of bluebells