
I rose and chose a coffee
from the selection of available
water based liquids.
With this I had a cigarette,
which I made myself:
harvesting, drying, processing leaf,
pulping paper in a big blue pail,
extracting gas from the bio mass
and flattening it to the required
denir aboard my
miniature steam roller.
An exhaustive process
often interrupted by the need
to release toxic waste
from the tee-pee
~
On arrival upstairs in my lift
the day was revealed as misty
and the streets sweat wet.
I dropped my lighter on the floor and left it,
vowing to retrieve it later
with my extended manual claw
that hangs from the hospital bed.
A cursory take on the news
clarified the extent of yesterday’s huge explosion in China.
Jim Al Kalili showed me around Sellafield
nuclear reprocessing plant and availed me of a
brief history of nuclear energy.
He looks very like a frog
I was intimate with once
during Thermidore
Away from chaos radio and noisy gadgets
I try to hear my own voice.
It is jumbled, jerky, muddled
&
When it hears me listening it shut’s up.
Intruder, it whispers under my breath and hides behind an eyebrow.
Another voice comes, quite the opposite of my sonorous lilt
An abrupt jibber-jabber
accompanied by
a mellifluous buzzer.
Just as I begin to make it out
It stops and hides behind an eyelid
~
Unperturbed I resume my
interrupted bout
of shadow boxing.
So far the shadow is ahead by two points:
it is southpaw, dogged, cunning, experienced.
I stand firm, steely jawed, granite eyed,
bleeding, unfeeling, waiting.
Rope a dope, Ali called it;
or, was that Angelo?
~
Zap, I’m downed
a momentary lapse is all it takes
bloody WASPs
get me every time
I let my guard down
‘Your universal joint’s gone west,
its serious,
I’ll do my best.’
He frowned.
The tension was killing me
so I kicked it off
hard in the nuts.
It bolted.
You could not see its heels for dust.
‘I’ve cracked it!’
exalted the wheelwright
straightening up.
‘You had pre-stressed oil:
now you ain’t.’
I danced with joy,
it started raining.
The rain dance
is the only
dance I know