The past is unzipped, like the backseat loverloosening your tie. You were crazy about himin June, sleeping past noon in the grass,singing all night out of tune. By Septemberhe’d split, without so much as a goodbye kiss. It’s tough to be the one who’s ditched, the scrub who gets bumped from the nest. Now you’re adrift in
What Martine had learned in acting school over the summer,about tone, emphasis, inference,is all useful in the con —herself as charming, consoling Ms. Real Estate Agent.Martine’s clientele — flush widowerswanting to sell the family home,move to a manageable apartment. Walking through the properties,noting brand name dresses hanging in wardrobes,pearl necklaces lying on bedroom dressers,a diamond
In hibernation and a huff. No work for six months. Will I have to invent an illness as explanation? My desires are simple — a pot of English breakfast tea, a piece of nougat. I can’t affect ‘a lifestyle’. I am sick, though, of this view. Brick wall. Drainpipe. Grey tracksuit pants on clothes line.
Bukowski’s ghostis horsing in the garden – careening crazily –a grounded Red Baron flying a Fokker Eindeckerdrunken-legged – arms thrown out as wings,then elbows hunched, hands close together,forefingers squeezing triggers, letting them have ittwin machine-gun style – teeth and lips spittingbursts of rapid fire – his face splits laughing,shirt and eyes wine-stained.
Her home, but not (she knows) her house. It is his house, his wall, his garden. She takes it hard, and means to harden So far as courtesy allows. Am I alone in feeling he Could ease things with a breezy word Or passing smile when they conferred About the rent?
Crabapples strewn. I knew that lure would draw our blackbirds round the trunk. What do they care the fruit is sour? I like their pluck. Let’s us devour each acrid chunk of windfall, too, before our hour lapses. I mean the fruit that’s grown to globes of rude maturity on no such
Seizing her axe she brought it down with blows One altered morning when the same sun rose Differently on her than him, which meant She knew the backyard aspen’s lease was spent. It fell to him to prise the stump’s grudge out. And yet how intergrown he was with doubt About it all, as whether
Glad I decided against the tie, the polka dots. That freelancer Houghton is covering the Festival.I’ll buy him a pint during the break.Doubtless he’ll bang on about his latest cricket book,how well it’s selling in India. I’ll start with an icebreaker. A dog poem.Follow say with three poems about Wanda —what went right then wrong.I
We were to meet outside the stationat the top of the High Street, one AugustSaturday afternoon, and I became aware,walking there, of new sensations:the way my hair brushed my shouldersin the heat; that inner unease I’d heardwas called butterflies and hadn’t knownwhy, until now; the painful drag, of whichI was in denial, of stiff clogs
Passers-by, accelerating on your errands, you overlookthe spider’s labour — a silver thread from thorn to thriving rose,the wind waking every leaf.Crow, ego with wings — you announce yourself as king of the street.Above — a wafer of moon. Not ready to leave the sky.
Out by the river, picking over driftwood bleached like bone. Or digging in the earth for a succulent root, when the light once forged in an ancient star is found. Nugget of fire from a neutron bomb so bright that the sky still burns. Now rolled in a palm. Set beside
Stood for ages waiting for the sun to turn up and pay homage to a clutch of brilliant orange poppies. It declined. But the poppies couldn’t be bothered to get hung up on feelings of betrayal and bobbed about — ditsy and undimmed — perhaps slightly drunk on some fringe classic I couldn’t catch beneath
Young and too much lip,I’m stuck on railings, up and down the slip roadsor round the parks: topping and tailing from a paint kettle,mindful of bounding dogs, that my trailing leg might topplethe gallon stock can. I’m a gardener as well,hacking back brambles and nettles, freeing the bottom plinths.Exposed: no place to shelter or skive,
Joel tried his hand at acting,appeared as one of the gravediggers in Hamlet,an amateur production on the Isle of Man.Audience applause remained polite. Backstage, Albert, the other gravedigger,was reading Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. Joel looked at himself in the dressing room mirror —Nose broken in a lunchtime fight with Higgins in Year 11—Joel had
Clown School convenes at midnight sur la plage — a maverick constellation of old sea-dogs and post-humous grands personnages. Chateaubriand has on a red nose and does the rope trick to a tee. Degas draws his Dead Fox in the air but wobbles and the ears go askew. Cue a snicker from Corneille that triggers
We smashed china cups, saucers, sugar bowls, plates, teapots on slabs of paved-over lawn – ripped apart bodies of teabags, scattered their unholy remains amongst the splintered finery – out of plastic kettles, we sloshed hot water, drenched the mess in pretend, ritual sterilisation – and then we boogied, in the latest footwear, on our
Would he be 60, this mantoe-punting the hook and eye latchsecuring the firm’s caravan door? Such a performanceto keep his balance, he went onto back-heel it instead when in two tickshe could have slipped it freeby reaching out, bending his knees. But this amiable man with familyhatchback and detached bungalowstarted kung fu-ing it until the
Lacing up gleaming skates, then off the rein At last, kids shuffling gouts of steam We elbowed into churned-up tracks and packed the train Of bodies bent and wobbling in the stream That watched in awe below the mirror ball As denims and drape jackets paid the price For slinging
What have I done with my one life and all the time it takesUp the ladders of alcohol and down depression’s snakesI’ve met too many predators and bought too many fakesI had too many choices and made some bad mistakesUp the ladders of ecstasy and down delusion’s snakesWhy does a simple scene in life involve
1979 Break time. Out of the staff room window through The fug of pipes and cigarettes The landscape of industrial decline Has empty smokeless chimneys signal debts To history that never will be paid Except by demolition. Cleanliness Of plate glass far prefers the playing fields Whose straight white lines mean