Sunday 6 October 2013

3 New Poems

Crooked Hourglass

Desperation held out a warm hand, patience
of its pursuit so apparent from the
hours spent in pacing planning to the
mere second consumed by nervous comment,
the kind you make at dinner
parties around people you barely
know except for the host
whose name you keep written
on hand to remember;
that kind of night
in fact, truly
I'd say
Almost,
it was
the run of sand
grains in trinket shop
fashion, cheap blue plastic
to count on when all our
wound wires in transistor radios and
finely lab-polished microwaves some
day do fail, some day do fall as
old growth redwoods, the cracking sound
as arid gunshots bursting in December night.

Marks Left

Watching the EU funding signs and the green pastures
of centuries bygone roll past beneath strange
comforts of roiling grey Ulster's permanence,
the inaccurate clock and the flashing red seatbelt
sign that no one paid any mind, but the tourists
were always subtletly scared of violating,

the light seemed bent only to make prism astonishment
rainbow's end just beyond Belfast horizon,
and great star's setting hue close to touch the
village houses tucked between before time's
forbearing carpentry carvings of mountain stone.

I drew a signature on the air and let it pass,
I drew a time's presence on the window, in half-measure.


Tea & Ulster Fry

Contemplating the shape of sauce can
beans spread out in front of me by the
waitress with her cool indifference of manner,
the same eyes felt scanning across the Casey's
countertop seem to reoccur in spades.

Stainless steel spoons click off coffee mug edges,
roving banjo twangs sliced grey air in chef's
knife abundance, right around I looked to the
steeping of Orange Pekoe for some conclusion:
just some water cooling, just getting darker each second.

Thinking back on the Northern BBC logo, how it
looked so satisfied with breakfast bread, with
a ration rasher and cleaned white plates;
the grease seemed to melt with time on the
chip shop wall, carried vestment scent of long past years.

How was it, the right of peasant and king alike
stared blankly to face and ripped sharply lip;
knife-and-fork clatter merging Vivaldi tone,
I flipped back through old pages, canary-bright
as smoker's fingertips, and clarity became:

I had my tea on morning in Ulster, but
none to share it with.

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