TALKING RODIN

Tags

poem, poetry

TALKING RODIN

you wanted to
model yourself
on me

thanks for
the flattery

but would prefer it
if you would
help to
mold me
whilst I’m
doing my
level creative
best
to mold you

as single sculptures go
the best we
two can do.

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ARTIST

Tags

poem, poetry

ARTIST

the artist
only cares
about form

the politician’s
sole concern
is power

look what
a caricature they
have made of you
how reduced

the one
to control
to fleece
you sick

the other
to cut away the fat
the dross

have you
speak
your
basic truth

in
sad, shattered,
most human
voice

SHOW ME

Tags

poem, poetry

SHOW ME

let me out
show me
the door

or better,
draw me a window
where I can see
all those things that poems
are supposed to
be full of

Nature like a garden
a garden like Nature

streams whose murmuring
remind you this house
you have entered is
pure sound has
been constructed
out of words,
beautiful
words

a synonym for
these strange,
cryptic squiggles

ON AESTHETIC PRINCIPLES

it’s hard for
a poet caught
in bed doing
something with
someone somewhat
illicit

should the full
weight of the
moral law be
forgone

and he, she,
be purely judged
on aesthetic principles

FISH (for David Butler)

FISH (for David Butler)

it’s just a fish

not like
for a dish

and it involves
a ship
we call
“craftsmanship”

a fishing vessel
we call
metaphor

David though
in a small boat, actually
more a coracle

somewhere beneath the surface
of that dark, rough sea

a bite
waiting to happen

to be
pieced together

frame by frame
bone
by
bone

moment
by moment

SAVING NINE

stitch together moments

let them mistake
time for
embroidery

too much trouble to
unpick the pattern
(art’s advantage
over history)

WINDOW

art is the
window to
man’s soul
she
roared (being a
Leo)

so we looked through
a window in the house
in the painting

and saw you looking
through a window
on the other side

MOUSE STAR

mouse star
spider star

it has taken me a life
to see you as you
really are
(let us not
speak of “lifetime”)

walking past a sidewalk cafe
(as I was, to be punctilious)
whorls of energy
spread across the galaxy
whose text
blue
and gold (whose code,
whose grammar:
who knows?)

stars of my childhood
why were you
as you were
when other configurations
could have been
so much better

but no
stars of
deep, death-darkest night,
even if you were
staring malignly
you would
have been invisible

for you
have holes to
burrow down into

webs to spread and
lie at the centre of
(and other lie too: about
your purpose, origin
and history)

spread your
net wide, dig
your hole deep

until you catch me
inside, outside
a poem
trapped in a
work of art

the paint still wet
fire

still
raging

thread
still unwinding

so good to be penniless, unknown,
standing outside the gallery
no access, no entry

absolutely, painfully
ecstatic
to be alive.

FATHOM ME

come
fathom me

see how deep I go
become the artist of
the sculpting
fingers

they feel
as if they know

CONCERNING SPELEOLOGY

CONCERNING SPELEOLOGY

I do not
adore caves

caves I
abhor

cannot imagine
the Altamira artists
crawling on
all fours, painting
on their backs

brains bursting, images caving
in, a
flood of
deep symbols
desperate to
be released from
millennia of
collective confinement.