I drink the tea and Infinity
seems clearer than before.
A Molecule grows Mammoth Sized
and swims through hellebore
while Halliburton in a junk
sets sail to nevermore.
The teas leaves stain my china redder
than it ever was before.
The ancient man whose one athletic bound
plonked him on the girder looking downed
and outed shouted to the crowd below
that he was God or would be could he grow
the powers needed, grow into the role.
‘Until that time,’ he cried, ‘I’ll be a troll.’
He jumped from the girder bannistering the bridge
to a depth at which the natural laws abridge
leaving him no soul, just the elements essential:
the classic four you know, and the quintessential
fifth essence we discovered in a ridge
of his jaw now relic in our church’s fridge.
What through the language glass, the laughing gas of worlds
or that of them, or it, our eyes report,
through the media of phonemes we have learned
at our mothers’ knees, or not, you may retort,
to our minds makes up the matter we can know.
That first sentence, diagrammed on grammar trees
of plastic can be useful scratching fleas.
It has perhaps semantic depth as well
and buckets of pretentiousness to swell
a research grant to help a grantee muddle
the waters further so we’ll need a buddy
system to ensure should one get drowned
the other will get published or renowned,
states mutually exclusive as you know
must be the case. Move on to April 2.
The wind rescinds the harsh rule of the regent.
It blows his fleet of fierce ships aground.
The revolution spreads out like detergent
on an oil slick. It’s the biggest stain around.
The people on the even streets are insurgent;
they put the odd street people to the sword
which sounds that bit more classical than ‘murder’
but hurts as much. Such power has a word
that a haberdasher – good teeth, wavy hair
and a voice like John Wayne – commands the news.
Each day he smiles on television beaming
misinformation that the strife is over
until it is. Then, at the crowd’s suggestion,
he moves into the palace, and parades
on feast days, and survivors open shops
and all is as before. It never stops.
The wind resembles zebras more than zephyrs
as it kicks its heels up heeling over schooners.
Shoehorned into a hovel in the harbour
this wind cleans house and rousts the sleeping souse
who’d crept inside decrepit and sedated.
Weary but aware and seeing clearly
for the first time in this century, with a grin
he’d forgotten having, he salutes the wind
that whinnies, kicks the door ajar and jostles
the man to mount it, ride towards the horizon.
He is old as the hills, he’s fanatically bent
although the world’s gone queer,
on becoming an ancient who some might think wise;
his failure here is clear.
His doctor’s retired and his priest has expired
and gone to Who knows where.
He spends all his mornings on diets and prayer
and his afternoons on beer.
His grandchildren helped him creep out for some sun.
He found their attention dear.
They left him outside and the winter was long
but it’s spring and he’s still here.
I like this sound of light industrial noise,
the ring of hammers, claps of sawed boards dropped
hard on the stone tiles, cries from men to boys
to get a move on. Mondays I would opt
for the swish of Trisha’s long shirts as she mopped
and on through Thursdays mostly what I’d hear
was the clack of motor fittings slotting back
where they ought to have been anyway before
the handymen unhandily though lack
of skill mistook a taper for a bore.
Thank Thor it’s Friday. Ship out. Close the store.
We are chipmunks, or we would be were we wiser,
dashing hither dither darting till we die.
We race telling stories none of us remember
how often they were told or when or why.
The wind stirs leaves we fancy are emotions.
A truth on Monday Tuesday is a lie.
We learn sharp nostalgia when we leave the nest
then forget that too that way we do the rest.
Earth Tourist 