Prognosis

 

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?

Gift

 Gift

 

Medea takes the lift

each floor a new betrayal

love’s knife sharp truth

across the throat

until there’s no one left

no one getting in no one getting out

no more hearts for sale

 

and now the doors won’t open

a lid on a box that is forbidden

and then the light goes out

so there are no walls no ceiling

only a floor she cannot trust

she might be rising she might be falling

she just might have disappeared

she puts a hand to her face

touches skin with skin

understands the weight of faith giving in

 

She’s Psyche perched upon the spire

waiting for the marriage beast

in the darkness for her husband’s breath

for Persephone’s beauty played upon a lyre

and she’s lost all hope of Pandora’s gift

she’s alone dissolving and becoming myth

 

she leaps upon the pyre  

the fallen

 the fallen

on the smooth surface

of the Icarian Sea

a fisherman hauls in his net

and shudders to find yet again

waxy feathers and fragile bones

swimming with the muscular

flesh of still living fish

writhing and squirming the frantic

mouths the would-be screaming

the water greasy with fear …

 

above, a sky clear and blue

holding a sun the light a whorl

all radiant with innocence

blinding the world askew

and deep down in the turbid depths

of a black sea floor the bottom feeders

are picking clean the gleaming

remains of a fallen star   that at least once flew

that, at least once, flew

Love Story

 

Love story

 

It’s deep in the water,

So I’ll need equipment:

Oxygen tanks, a mask,

A suit to keep out the cold,

A torch to light the way,

A lifeline either way,

A sharp knife, and

An excuse for failing,

For returning to the surface

Breathless and empty-handed,

A reason for standing in the shallows,

Bloodless and still flailing.

the fall

the fall

Nike hesitates to cross the street

her hand held out in mid-air

just above ground zero

as if to stop traffic

tanks rumble past

the ground trembles

her wings coated in ash

she resembles a statue to an old hero

she cannot compare   her ears fill with static

a laurel wreath in tatters at her feet

 

Ares     with no regrets

is smoking a cigarette

and leaning against a lamppost

on the other side of defeat

Bound

Bound

 

As the sun slowly heals the night   burns bright

Prometheus can see far across the valley

can read the smoke drifting dispersing

almost smell the singed fat and bone

watch the figures in the landscape

ploughing building toiling

note the shadows of birds

skimming the fields

a dove an eagle

umbrae of an

approaching

vulture

… 

Click here for Prometheus link

The Bends

 

The bends

 

Love is surely the same for some of us

the seemingly original addiction to touch

and being touched the anticipation

the seemingly endless gratification

how everything is too little and too much

the spiralling descent into paradise

only to find the oxygen thin the lack of sky

So begins the slow tortuous attenuation of desire

then the raging ascent rising for a breath of air

and towards the end surfacing into endless ocean

with nothing or no one to grasp or cling to and

the blood fizzing in the brain and the bends.