Tag: 2015

Homeless

I am a thing / not a thing

elevated to the status

of object / product

a float between what

you’ve seen / thought you saw

.           / ignored

 

the error of our ways

is the tragedy of our days

how long until O becomes Q

until the realisation gains a tail

& the question of de-evolution

is reconsidered by apes

on a production line

 

look, squatted in a shopfront

under discoloured blankets

the disgrace of our lives

thrown from the line

I am a thing / not a thing

 

Published in Page Seventeen, Issue 12, November 2015

Published in The Frequency of God, Close-Up Books, December 2017

 

When I Last Spoke to Cocteau

for Jean Paul De Santi

 

When I last spoke to Cocteau

he told me about a spin-

-ning game he played

as a child,

.           I laughed but Cocteau

just smiled –    then serious

he said “I wrote to Satie

the other day   but I don’t expect a reply.”

I told him I’d been to Arcueil

just after Satie died,

found a pile of unopened letters

near where he worked.

 

Cocteau didn’t want to talk

anymore & said we should

go for a drink

he pointed to the end of the street

where a piano played the sound of clouds

 

but I was too tired.

 

A version of this poem was first published in Writ. Poetry Review, 5 January, 2015

The above revision appears in The Frequency of God, Close-Up Books (December, 2017)

A video of the earlier version is available here

An audio of the earlier version is available here