Dumb old shanty gerbil
Your meat’s in a range war
Your meat’s in a range war
The Cross goes chaka boom —
A Chernobyl Yule glow —
Yew bow cleaver thin.
Quaff Somme bier, Althea,
Chagrin and sloe gin.
(sung somewhat along the tune of ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ from SOUTH PACIFIC)
December night acquires a fuller moon
that lights the whitecaps on the Ijsselmeer.
I pace to warm myself, attempt a tune
the wind absconds with, wiping off a sneer
from my chapped lips. A sleepy heron stands
just inward of the rocks that take the spray.
It dews his feathers, flecks and chills my hands.
Winter’s Blessed Wind Chill appeared in The Olding Man
Squirrels, small as the rubber ducks they ride,
push off across the bathtub’s troubled waters.
‘For the millionth time,’ the youngest squirrel complains.
‘We must,’ the lead squirrel says, ‘continue for our honour,
sustained by hope against the blatant facts.’
As they paddle with their non-webbed small squirrel hands
an undercurrent in the bathtub strengthens.
The precedent select plays with the stopper.
The jackdaw is not interested in the ocean’s edge but I am.
He agrees it can be our subject while we play
Destination. To save energy we set
ourselves in spirit mode. Quick as thought we fly
to the Mediterranean and look for the Rhone.
‘To call a river’s end a “mouth” is ugly. Spewing water!’
He tells me the jackdaw term. We zoom and seek.
The more we think and look the less we see
of any demarcation, any ocean’s edge.
‘Set your eyes in bird mode and look for the surface,’
he says. I do. I fight awe and vertigo.
I see droplets in their trillions dance, exchanging
floating for commingling with the air.
‘We lived in the woods,’ he said as if that mattered.
Perhaps it did. To him. But not to me.
He gathered thoughts that I had liked better scattered.
I answered I had felt more for the sea.
We watched each other at and through the mirror.
We blinked and shook our heads. We still were there.
The waves outside grew mountainous. The nearer
grabbed our attention. We took to the air.
The money dries up coming in the door.
The bills it pays at nibble on our hands
and stop them playing music anymore.
The angel dust that gathers in the sands
outside our door brings strength I can’t resist.
My strength is like an angel’s or ten men
each time I hit on uppers. Don’t insist
that there’s nothing left of courage in that tin
I bought at midnight walking in the park.
The stalking time that tourists fear with cause
is all I have. Behind my eyes it’s dark
although my pupils flame like Santa Claus
on steroids whipping on his wayward elves.
Our money’s gone. We are feeding on ourselves.
Date this sonnet written unknown. Revised 05/06/2006, 03/02/2016 (and changed themes from ‘Psychosophy’ (because it’s not at all about me) and from ‘Mortal Health’, to ‘Drink and Drugs’ and ‘Crime’), 06/09/2016
What is a place when landmarks disappear?
Who knew wind blew so wildly? All fell down.
The map confirms that where we are is here.
It’s already hard to think this was a town
and that a forest. Where are all the trees?
Who knew wind blew so wildly? All fell down.
If there is no inside, tonight we’ll freeze.
Where the sun shown briefly through, would that be east
and that a forest? Where are all the trees?
Of all our problems it is not our least
that we learn that what we’ve lost we never liked.
Where the sun shown briefly through, would that be east?
I check the time and see that it is now.
The map confirms that where we are is here.
I look as far as gathering clouds allow.
Where vaguely or precisely was Faulkner’s bear?
Or where is it? Is it – was it – a real place?
An actual bear in an imagined land
or, other way around, a phantom bear
in what was forest then, now subdivision,
or something grand once, once upon a time?
Earth Tourist 