Tuesday 19 January 2016

3 New Poems

Blood Work
Line tracing, interlace of brutal
freedom; there isn’t so much
of an imprint in charts,

Imperceptible what it does,
clear as ice water, swift
as bony February chill.

Still there, though, gnawing red,
face-flushed, wriggling away
each time it gathers
past some point of resistance,

Breaches some barrier.

Starring into 50-year’s dawn:
a kind of tempered obsolescence,
planned and begun now through
forward ever.

Your still life chase of bloodstreams,
of beating hearts, something charging.



Would Not/Could Not
It’s a sort of quill-based dilemma:

To suffer shocks, string, be stung,
but to have felt all along,
to have been but for the hour,
came the man in stride.

Or, retreat, denial of
blood being bled, tea kettle warm
but not so close, cozy, as all
that implied,

Not so much as lemon water
lip touch.

Once, it never came,

In spite of
dreamcatchers, newspaper clippings, awkward gestures.

Now, I deny it.


Backsplash
The course of treetop pine,
summer lawn humming,
seems so far, statues’ tumult,
outside one window pane,
outside dusting glass shard,
paper-push arrangements,
diet drink formulation,

and why?

Sliding sop, wet linoleum,
slick in over-polished glisten,
chalky disposition worn in
defensible typecast:

too bright in sainthood,
too dark in January work mornings.

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