Dodo
imagine the last dodo confounded
the whispered croak in its throat
a whimper as it runs for cover
to shelter and shiver
beneath a tambalacoque tree
a loneliness only the dying
only the hunted know
each one of us
a personal extinction
does the world grieve for this one bird?
did God?
to be remembered
to become
a negative overexposed
too much light
too much light
an absence felt in someone else’s life
performance
this performance of self was slipping
away
a loose scarf falling from her shoulders
her hands flapping and fearful useless
and in these final scenes
when everything everything
was sliding away
she had never been closer to what it
meant to be
to what it meant to be her not to
be her
the lights about to go out the curtain to fall
and the audience awed by the performance
the standing ovation the rain
the flowers
in the carpark a slight impatience
platitudes performance
the need for something solid something
graspable
the stage the theatre in darkness
the scarf on the floor left behind
a darker shadow irretrievable
arrhythmia
he listens
the piano in a Górecki song
the understated sympathy
those passages where a note
at a time
is quietly quoted
the dripping tap of his humanity
in a symphony of things ineffable being uttered
he exists mostly in the spaces
between the strikes of the key
waiting with
a kind of insistence
on the beating of his heart
that up or down on the staves of a ladder
unsure whether he is the piano or the pianist
link: Gorecki, Sorrowful Songs
revenant
Imago
slipping from the raft of a dream-life
clutching at water
struggling to find purchase
waking to a sound
a pulsing whirring sound somehow
a mix of the tick and sweep of a second hand
the squashed wind roar of a wind turbine’s blade
sensing the whoosh of it’s shadow
swoop across his eyelids
feeling time sluggish in his veins
the engine of his heart starting to turn over
all in his head all in the mind
a resurrection
the stopped clock that never stops
but does so not today
opens his eyes on the world again
it pours into him
a flood
filling him with light with weight
suddenly
surprisingly clumsily buoyant
he sees
his clothes undressed upon a chair by the bed
a skin to be worn
a skin to be shed
Pepper’s ghost (ATU 327A/DSM-IV)
Once upon a time …
there’s a girl she’s lost a shoe she’s lost in a forest she’s a pocketful of breadcrumbs there’s a body in the oven uncooked raw she’s been to a ball dancing into the club she’s letting her hair down she’s tying it up it’s a ladder it’s a noose highly strung high and dry fast and loose she’s a beast to be kissed she’s a bargain being struck a clock striking midnight a deal not to be missed made for a match she’ll light them one by one she’s a promise of gold of blood on the sheets she’s in a passage of rites she’s a stepping stone a chicken bone a finger to be pricked an apple to be picked a bite to be taken a bag full of beans forsaken a tower to be climbed a property to be claimed she’s a name to be named constructed deconstructed postmodernised and analysed she’s a life to be lived in but the shoe that she’s found herself in doesn’t fit it
mirror mirror on the wall where
they all live happily ever after after all
no longer there
it’s such a long journey to the other end of the sofa
he’d have to put his book down and crawl out of his
bunker of cushions
climb over the TV and other defences
he’d have to pull himself out of this car crash
and swim to the surface
it’s such a long journey to the other end of the
sofa
and there’s so much baggage clumsy and heavy
the terrain thick with roots and traps
and the map is worn thin and folded so
so that it falls apart in his fingers
it’s such a long journey to the other end of the
sofa
that language tires stumbles into sleep
and he can’t read the invitation can’t even get it
out of the envelope
of his pocket of air so thin here so steep the climb
here beneath the weight of stars he tries to breathe
it’s such a long journey to the other end of the
sofa
there are so many stations so much distance to cross
the compartment overheated overcrowded
the window busy reflecting inside and out
and arrival was never the point of his
destination
and maybe you are no longer there
immortality
not forever
but long enough perhaps
that when she’s in her seventies
divorced or abandoned by death
and her kids have gone off
to live in those other lives
they too found by the roadside
a cheque will come
so there will be wood for the fire
a bottle of inexpensive sanguine Sauvignon
uncorked a
steak sizzling in the pan
a few cracked peppercorns a little cream
she’ll take a book down from a shelf
open it to this page
she’ll take a knife
and fork
and there’ll be blood in the sauce
she’ll raise the glass and I’ll be there
