SYMPHONY

Tags

poem, poetry, Universe

SYMPHONY

I was
birth that
happened

time
showing up
to press the
countdown

beginning and
ending close
to synonym
as the
verb to be

I am
that thing that
the Universe created
to mock the
scale of
the galaxies

my moment not
even a note (not
even pain
of first
breath) in
this great and self-
convinced cosmic symphony.

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SPLICE

Tags

poem, poetry

SPLICE

cannot splice life

or
tap the
brain’s
electricity

catch its colours
project them
onto a screen

watch
the dance of flames

wondering
if they do
or do not burn

whether they seal, heal
where the light cut in half

IN THE TAIL

Tags

female, poem, poetry, Universe

IN THE TAIL

wanted the
secret of
life
so I looked
under a stone

smooth, possibly
semi-precious but
there was a
scorpion home

she stung me
deeply right
next to the bone

and as
I lay dying (world
Faulknering about me)
sang a tune
a most

sexual song
about how all
my ideas, indeed my
entire philosophy

was wrong

GRENFELL ALBUM

Tags

poem, poetry

GRENFELL ALBUM

I scroll through your names
read each snapshot of your lives

think of the human pity that
there is no mitigation, no
quiet book-closing fatalism
to let us, your readers, your
imaginers, down gently
no soft euphemism
to kill the horror
recoil from
terrible truth of fire

Oh little children, Oh lover
of song and
of dance

and saint-like altruist, hearts of
poetry, minds of philosophy
we see
now exactly the loss

it’s balance with cost
and wonder why the Universe
would be so
heartless to
Insist that price was paid.

***

Oh let us never forget this album
and what
pain and
love
learnt with every page.

SEA URCHINS

what the dickens!

the sea urchins have
asked for more

it is their bed
and they
will have to
lie in it

their niche that uncle
Scrooge evolution
says they
will need to be schooled in
for millennia more

BLACKBOARD

the Universe
is the blackboard

upon which
is written

the formula
for poetry

ON HIS DEATHBED

as he aged his
key dictum increasingly became:
love every single
living thing

this he felt ever more
insistently and clearly

until
on his deathbed
a vision of love dawned
upon him
deep and true

to the extent that he figured
he had even begun
to understand
a tiny
bit better
the female gender
of the
human species

BREATHE

let the darkness enfold me
like the crust of a pie

and if I should die
of suffocation

let me express such joy
that the Universe is
not perfectionist

plays the odds
takes risks

leaves holes in the fabric
precisely that
creatures so limited,
helpless as I

might breathe

ANTIDOTE ANECDOTE

shot with a joke gun
turning blue since
about to die laughing

but then
clown paramedics
scampered in
saved
the day

tickled him
pink

better than the killer joke
the one that
resurrected him

WHILST SHE

no sooner had he
said the word
“eternal” than
the chain broke, the gears
jammed
there were riots
down at the granary

whilst she
put her hand into a
small pool
surmising how much
(for better
or for worse) invisible
life