Tag: 2015

Man Alive, Number 5

Another dream of “normal” life,

the morning takes a knife &

plunges it into a weakened soul,

waits until time sears the pain & then

wraps it in a plastic bag of pregnant desires.

 

The bingo caller’s lost his voice,

numbers fall to the floor, & are

left to roll around while the players panic,

clutching cards to their chests,

under house/cardiac arrest.

 

Sleep & the day becomes another,

dread falls like a midnight phone call –

did you remember to leave an

out of body message now you’re a

thousand sighs from home?

 

But

maybe you should call home,

to save some embarrassment of absence,

find out if someone’s fed the elephant in the room,

and watered down the dandelion wine,

(be responsible, man). No,

 

instead you eat a cancer sandwich

& sit on the side of the road

while cars race past

and a voice in your head screams

“BINGO!”

 

Published in Tincture Journal #9, February 2015

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

 

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