Dubliners
Half way instead in his magnum opus,
past calm, and future cuddled, yet tense urge to snatch and cry:
Stephanie (a plaintive song),
A minor epiphany
appearing from the door, rejoice –
Like a notice of dismissal, misconduct
Barely legible -
The way home is long and there are a manner of creatures
to waylay; in areas the blare of blank sirens screened, and
the swine-risk,
odd flesh must pass its test.
clinch
do not alight here came too late
you are
an invitation to a chess problem
my grubby white pieces are shattered teeth
I was pleased the tequila went down like water
as if this was my advantage over the vital boys
you floated over in green
I was with Kenny, my level brother, my sorry future, my ex-priest defrocked, my image of spit,
he “was pleased”, like fuck, because we’re the same
would have kicked your ankles in the clumsy third person dance
now I hindsee warnings and remember people can tell,
there’s precedent and scandal and it’s been quantified (in the guardian, no less)
and I am only undifferentiated,
but still,
a guy can think of facebook, and hold the taps,
and imagine you between me and the mirror.
arsehole sonnet
(Rimbaud in Mostar)
Plato’s cave and conglomerate nightclub;
the lady, a contribu-nudist
writes her name around your prow, and
imagines again the diphallic light side skewer-promise.
when mirrored adolesced fear of pendulous testicle
led to shattering asymmetrophobia of low garden walls.
A hijab-wearing trainee doctor
was bedevilled by your porcupine quills.
An occasional spider fluffed at slope,
morphed Arachne, they made an example of her,
but couldn’t entirely quell her quiet hubris.
She is home-spun in soft undulation.
Whatever orbit, once or twice daily you divulge secrets -
another rim-lacuna into hidden workings, society’s upturned ear.
disaster / inaction
It impends, by a river, cold
summer's day, disrupting syntax,
uneven chill makes itself noticeable,
Disaster, in the angles of a swan
appearing in narrowed perspective
of high grasses either side, looms,
heightens in banked old couple, not
far downstream, the man's sideways
glance is hard to read
(I can hope).
To wade in and reclaim what was freely
given to the river - wet-
through jeans and anklesinking deep
(though nothing really disturbs the surface but the two swans
seen individually, and a pine cone I threw)
to leave you drowning on the bank.
Dull disaster, tributary to somewhere of more epic sweep,
threatens nonetheless to tear another fibre.
