Bematist
Sisyphus calculating
counting
pacing taking the
measure of
the world from Alexandria
to the here and
now sees
the shadow reducing
along the curvature
of the earth
only
then to light up
the darkness
a moment
of water
caught
a well
slick
and
an
I
1
reflected on
a shimmering surface staring back gone
Dark Matter
I have tried to separate
your pieces
and to fix them
into a puzzle
that is the
puzzle of you
as if you are a puzzle
to be fixed
by finding discrete
pieces
discreetly
that form a
whole only to find
there are holes
where pieces do not
fit
or do so
inexactly more parts than sum
you or someone
dropped the mirror
and when you
peer in
it’s pure
Picasso the pain
There are spaces
not bridged gaps fissures
there are cracks
plates shifting
lack of seismic
control tectonic
irregularity
tremors and yet
you are
immovable and unstoppable
All this is
invisible
my antimatter
my Sagittarius
A*
sucking in all
the light
But this is just
science
and since it
does not cannot explain
nor can it paint
a picture of a weeping woman
I hold a shard
up against the light
to see its shape
wonder if this might be
a piece of myself
sharp
enough to make you bleed
warped by the
force of your gravity
Monday
Sisyphus is
looking forward to the weekend
a moment where
the rock jolts and jumps
bounces gets the rooks in flight bends
the air running
to a stop looks back
and then he
smiles and takes his
time as he walks
back down
the indifferent sunlight
dying slanting
golden
on the trees
clouds
flame burnishing
the air pungent
smoke of the
neighbour’s
barbecue
drifting
towards
Monday
bedtime story
the softness of
summer light
late afternoon early
evening
the way it
adheres to solid surfaces
the way it
emanates from leaf and tree
the way it
washes across the grass
the way it
gathers in the air
the way it
breathes like music
and if you
listen
the way it tells
your story
using only the
present tense
gilding the
moment …
then the way
twilight turns to dusk
turns to
darkness incomplete
turns to
starlight distance crossed
and so to sleep
Prognosis
The doctor shook his head,
The horizon’s coming after
her,
He said. He said,
It’s going to tip her off
this world -
Which, after all, is flat,
linear
When unfurled -
And take a part of your
world too.
Did you imagine that the
Coriolis
Effect was a fictitious
force?
Or that Achilles would never
catch up
With the tortoise?
That life was travelled
along a Möbius strip?
The TV’s on all day, playing
repeats,
A mockery of time passing.
She sits,
A bundle of sticks thrown at
her feet,
Too many to count, too few
not to number.
How much courage do you have
to muster,
Waiting, knowing, looking
over your shoulder?
Bad Faith
The door of his life has been left open,
Just slightly, a leaving ajar to let in
The air, a little - a way in, a way out.
He might step outside, or he may not.
He feels the draught upon his neck,
Hopes he is right, for his own sake.
He wonders about absence, about choice;
Thinks about the silence, about the noise.
The rats got in, the rats and the
mice,
Into all that had been left behind:
The clothes, the toys, the unmade
bed.
They gnawed and chewed, nested and bred;
Birds too, starlings and sparrows,
And the shit everywhere, slimy and
greasy,
With the slow rot of time, the damp,
the heat …
The weather raged: the rain, the
snow, the wind,
The sun cooking up a dreadful stew.
The brickwork stove slumped and
collapsed,
And the chimney- once repaired -
relapsed.
The roof sagged, the woodwork
buckled and warped.
Indifferent, abandoned, forlorn, the
family long gone -
Gone to the city, with its parks, cinemas
and zoos,
With its work and distractions, the
culture, the church -
The house gave up, gave itself up,
with nothing to lose;
Jilted, denied, and left in the
lurch, it closed its eyes.
It would have moaned, creaked,
cracked and split,
Sounds almost human to the attentive
passer-by;
For a house needs people to keep
nature at bay.
And the garden? It surrendered unto
itself:
An uprising
of weeds and wild flowers, the trees bleeding
Sap, shedding leaves, shouldering the eaves aside.
The survival of the tenacious, of the rapacious,
In which small worlds collide -
The spiders, the beetles, the ants
and the bees.
From the road, the house became
forest,
Became invisible, not so much decay
As reclamation. Undisturbed.
The rats, the mice, the birds.
Solus
On the edge of everything there is something:
The mind,
cradled by bone and skin,
Is the shore for
an ocean’s wave -
With the kiss of
kith and kin -
Rolling shadows
into this island cave.
On the edge of
everything there is nothing;
It hovers on the
periphery of being,
But sometimes it
slides into view
Like a fin
slicing through water,
Cutting a hole
in the whole … thing.
A whole is a
whole by virtue of its parts;
A hole is hole
by virtue of what surrounds it.
Everything but
Nothing can be shared.
https://www.damienhirst.com/the-physical-impossibility-of
An ocean washes the shore of this island
The days roll in
upon the beach,
Seethe and foam
and then retreat
And the sand
sucks in each one;
Footprints roam,
fill and dissolve,
The years are
erased and scrolled,
Experienced and
then gone –
Scuttled or shipwrecked
-
The water
clogged with wrack;
Yet still the
sirens sing along,
Whilst tides
wreak havoc at your back.
Beyond the beach,
the trees …
Out of reach … and
on your knees.
A moment
The wind has dropped, coming in over
the lake;
The storm, with its wild unrest, has
moved on,
So now the ripples barely reach the
shore:
The muscle of water relaxed; cloud borne away.
And the light lingers now, is altered and slow,
More smoulder than burn, as if the lifted lid
Of sky were hesitant to be lowered -
The moment is time, gathered and stored -
Only, finally, to slip from your fingers,
To slide shut on the darkness.
On the far side, away from the house,
The trees are gathering in the shadows
To separate black from blackness.
And soon the moon at your back will slink
Quietly into the water, quivering
Just below the surface, like a thought,
And you won’t turn to stare it in the face
But simply watch how it dances - elusive and alone,
Amorphous, trying to keep afloat -
Only, finally, to feel it sink like a stone.
Windfall
I have grown old;
A shrub turned
tree
Now lost in the
forest of itself,
Where dreamed of
maidens wandered,
Where fires were
built
And the heat was
squandered
On vast star-filled
skies
In a universe
that was at a tilt.
Now the fruit
has fallen to the flies.
I have grown
cold,
The branches
without a single leaf
To cover what was faith, what was belief.
Unhappiness (an extract)
John believed
that it lived in the cupboard
Under the stairs
with the forgotten
Boxes of
candles, and other odds and sods;
That there was a
redolence
Of mouse droppings
about it,
Or something
pissy and fishy;
That it was
silent and needed to be spoken to,
To be taken
outside, bashful and embarrassed,
Apologetic, and given
what for.
Janet imagined
it skulking around the attic,
A stranger in a
stranger’s house,
Rooting through
the relics of the past
With bony
fingers rimmed with dirt,
Releasing the
clasps of old suitcases,
Wisps of dust, looking
For something of
us to wear,
Swearing with a
lisp in the foul air,
Rank and
jealous,
As it hunted for
something holed and frayed
And reeking of musk,
Seeking a skin
to fill that had been flayed;
That it was
simply unspoken,
 |
…
your you
I once joined a queue of me’s
waiting at the ice-cream van
hundreds
and thousands
we were all
Mr
Whippy
staking a claim on the future
a 99
claiming a stake of the past
chocolate
sauce
unwrapping the present
crushed
nuts
broken wafers
strawberry
sundaes
melting
?
You tell me
Your me
is as valid as mine
your you
Glaucoma
Eyesight’s going ...
Each year the lenses thicken
To unscramble the flurry of words
Either read or written;
A discursive Morse Code:
Pictograms, hieroglyphics,
Tattoos, graffiti, facebook, woad.
Though looking back seems clear enough,
If you don’t stare too hard
At all the peripheral stuff.
But one always glossed over the small print,
What the packet really contained:
Those illegible, inedible ingredients.
Still, it’s in the failure to deliver
That life takes our measure,
That and in the unsuspected depth of the
mirror.
Yet, finally, the future’s focus is tight
On the oncoming darkness –
The tunnel at the end of the light.
Touched (by intention) - an extract
Her boyfriend’s tongue,
Tipped with promises,
Penetrates her mouth,
Loosens, unbuttons,
Unbuckles her being;
She slides off the edge
Of herself.
She moves through the cinema
Of the world,
Where strangers faces
Matinee porno movies,
Eyes panning like sleamy hands
Running amuck amongst
The folds and fissures
Of her undressing.
Her husband has an access
To her body she denies herself:
The piercing and eating
Of her flesh;
A gift, a right, she believes
She has freely given;
An invitation to ...
A movable feast,
A candle-lit supper,
A take-away dinner,
Finger food.
The napkin of her skin
Glistens.
One day,
He’ll push the plate away.
In Camera
There is usually a queue,
So you take a number, and wait,
Pass the time of day -
There’s always something to say -
Talk about the weather; stew;
Count the cost, and hesitate ...
The line shuffles forward,
Though one appears no nearer.
Some try to push in front;
A few wonder, What’s the point?
Others linger over every word,
Yet the meaning is no clearer.
And when your time arrives,
Everything seems to fall away,
As if the you as a notion
Has always been in question;
And what of you survives
Will barely have a say.
