Backwater
Turbid water:
frogspawn and dead mite,
leaf and leaf mould,
moulder in water,
and smoulder in fire.
In the watersmoke,
a quick refraction
moonlit silhouette,
stick strike and flick,
a stunned roach lands
soon dead:
Stone dead.
My first and only fish.
March home,
shirt stuffed
with bluff pride,
a natural born
roach killer.
Voices hear off. Who’s that?
Sotto voce, surely not…
Laryngitis? Going round.
Dan the Man,
very quiet, very soft.
Hard of hearing what?
Panic: King of Song breaks out!
Windows flung shut,
open air freshener
acrid Lavender.
Look out window, see blind woman,
shout hello, silly me
I can’t hear her, radio off,
mute mate shows up, funny looks.
Is it me or you? Tragic
You me: who we? Comic
Heads start to implode.
All I said: ‘Nice Day!’
watch blind woman talk away.
13:13
The familiar guest is here, bearing honey.
She has been through much to be here just now.
No powdered purgative prevented her,
temptation flopped, nothing but nothing kept
her from this preordained destination,
on this day, at this time, in this place: now.
Wind whips rain into a lather, suds flop
coating the gunny sacks of chrysalides.
In lamb we trust, mint sauce spooned, vinaigrette,
in dollop, drizzle, cavalier splashes,
and in gravy swilled figure of eights.
Suds slip down in dirt, super, saturated
soil where rose and weed fear to bed in wont
of oblivion, just when you least expect
a dandy bramble jallops the windowpanes.
No rest for the wicked, it tattoos.
looking out…
soft sighs and shrugs, sees
squalid sheets charge hedgeward.
Origin: the sea,
Which enters with flourish, flushed,
proscenium left.
Orange house recedes inland,
Lazy sill whippet sees me,
We conflate
with waving cypress,
All the same:
spraybent.
Upstart blasts
stale room,
hurricane farce of wrappers whorl,
vortex forms
in comet
crater
hemisphere
Drowning in the noises of black sea beach,
Ruby boyhood daydream in the winter hall,
transported from dull to duller :
a February vacation.
Call them Martin and Matilda, twins with
no redeeming features, seven years,
staring out the tiny attic window
as the rain came down in bullet lines.
They peeped from the corrugated hay barn
across the weeded concrete.
In that black plastic was a mushroom of horsefeed,
ready to be given out.
They shared secret oilcake to settle the rumbling bellies,
gothic caverns, avenues blood lit and sumptuous.
I cut my nails and parts of me appear
to touch as if it were the first time.
They touch warm scuffed chromium, solid and secure.
A distant puck of patter,
and the churning buttermilk of linen stir and lapse,
contained by the shadow of muttercup.
Yipes!
Either
the desk is higher
Or
the chair is lower.
One or both,
Or…
I am smaller.
Eek a squeak!
A Diva dives
A yappy, fledgling chirrups:
‘Where’s my grubs?’
‘Downunder.’
I call
From my eggshell
The
fragmented head surveys itself
quick clips of a factive dream.
The
perspective is from below.
It is indoors.
The
street scene is frugal,
the sky is blue.
The
feeling is anxious
A pressing engagement.
The
train is soporific,
uncomfortable
The
taxi rank is fresh, niggly,
and jumpy.
The
taxi journey is relief
detachment pause
The Antiques Roadshow
A shock ending.
Scrimmed Femur
The
ending is exhausted, querulous.
Sunlit indifference abounds
Curiosity killed the cat
they found it in the laundromat
Named it Yasser Arafat
And hung it on the wall
The next cat was not interested
In anything but being fed
And hiding fur balls in their bed
So they shot it in the head
And hung it on the wall
When we heard the first reports
Of pistol shots we went around
In dead of night without a sound
but everyone was underground
Or hung upon the wall.
Speedwell.
Headache,
Gerund,
a nap till PM, which is now – Holy Cow!
Another Independence Day ends
One man Bob.
On the mad ship dodgy gut
It’s a cheap trip to Doolali Tupp
You won’t get far on carrot
And a multigrain bar
Roll me a coffee,
pass me a tab,
and a biscuit too,
celebrate the comedy of yesterday,
Groucho, Panto, Kong and Fay Wray
Grimbeau 