5.8.2012 • Man in the Rain

Man in the Rain

There  was a man stooping in the rain
He had lost his keys in the rainwater
And while he thought he was looking for them
It accumulated in his coat
A darkly yellow raincoat
Obscured perhaps
and its colour deformed
by the rain
which fell gray against the black sky
The moon
a pale reminder of some impending ill
shone almost round through the granite clouds

The man's hat was black
Perhaps the kind of black that originates in a brown by day
or perhaps just that, black
And his eyes were nowhere to be seen
The rain fell like elongated spheres through a sea of emptiness
It seemed to replace every once clearly defined grain of the asphalt
with its own fluid inconstant shapes
The shape of droplets distilled backwards through time
to their perfect, immobile and imaginary state

The man stood there
looking faceless at the falling water
quiet
still
calm
only his lips spasming a little with a silent cry
CALL ME CALL ME BY MY NAME
call me by name and I'll respond
call and I may reply
the lips cried in a calm inexistent twitch
and the man slowly sank into the pitch-black earth
his eyes ever staring
blank, relentless
at him from every inch
of the shallow ground

6.7.2012 • A letter

A Letter
to a most deserving recipient,
in the form of
an Analogy.

I do quite like to think of these capricious downpours of mid-July rather not as a deliberate mischief of the heavens but as an inadvertent or even accidental choice—an act of weather as it were sent mistakenly at the wrong hemisphere or at the wrong time of the year—and not without cause :
There was much wisdom I believe in the ancient and Mediæval notion that each man in striving for perfection ought to seek the analogy of the cosmos and its universal forces and heavenly bodies on one hand to his own personal body and soul on the other, achieving thus the brave and noble aspiration to the true heavenly Harmony of the World’s Design. And in the same attempt, though crippled by the spirit of our times and my own deficient nature, I too am well invested; and my investments have paid off no higher interest than would their ragged constitution entitle them to.
And yet that is a great degree, for I have in my lame and earnest industry managed to resemble the perfect wisdom of such chancy errors of the earthly heavens as I above describe. And, even as these heavens in their established perfection as part of the Universal Design do sometimes err concealing from their rightfully entitled lands and seasons the constant and irrevocable calm and glory of th’unblemished skies, so do I by stumbling tongue or by deficient attentiveness or memory (which both do afflict me) o’ershadow the true gratitude and frank, naive affection due to such kind and generous people as one has only just met.

to D— and I—

28.4.2012 • [antie]

[antie]

today the ants
were swarming
down his tie–
that comical
crotch-pointing device
that ironically
underscores
our dignity

{not mine

I don’t have a tie
and I don’t have ants
nor cockroaches
nor rats nor mice
I’ve a machine
that makes those chirping noises
that drive them away}

–like rotted screws
rolling down
the crowded
alley of his mind
with sloth-like
agility

bending
denting
their thread
beyond
any hope
of future use

wrinkling
rumpling
their antennae
(isn’t it funny
that ants should have
antennae)
trampling the smaller ones
into the cobbles
all rust-brown
like dried blood
their juices
transparently edging
on the insane

there’s nowhere for them to go
of course
only
they fold
around the tie
like a tender hand caressing another
and when they clash
they cross in fury
or cannibalise indifferently

10.4.2012 • 18:18

In all probability starting a series on my obsession with symmetry in digital clock displays.

18:18

It’s 18:18
and the proud sun
but vaguely veiled above the clouds
(the fluffy ministers of Autumn
who now in Spring maintain a thriftful presence
in the sky’s abundant court)
approaches his daily
little-death

18:18
a time that cries adolescence twice
that shouts for joy
that moans for pain
exclaims for ecstasy
and drinks the dreams of passion
for his daily drink

18:18
and the clouds are grey, and
everything obeys their dim hue
grey and muffled
in the pre-dusk gloom

18:18
and I paint and paint
colours in my words
all in a little rough envelope
of imaginary brown paper
to send to you
and perhaps make you crack a smile

if all my art can muster that,
I will forget the misty firmament of clouds which hides the sun
and mourn only for the few tonnes of mass and distance and stories and life
that daily hide
your smiling face
from me.

29-31.3.2012 • Good mornings

I’ve been working on my rhythming and rhyming skills. Getting better versed in poetry, you could say–that is, hopefully.

•

Good morning I

Good morning, sweet my darling, sweeter still
With ev’ry hour the clock doth tick away;
Would I could ev’ry worldly hue distill
Through thee, and with thee sweeten ev’ry day.

(29.3.2012)

•

Good morning II

Good morning, sweetest sweetheart of my heart
Whose thought takes daily still my world away;
Would it would take me too, and swift impart
Me whole to you, thus ending my dismay.

(31.3.2012)

•

26.3.2012 • insidious spring

This year spring has hit most insidiously
Or was it you?
I was walking across my neighbourhood’s park
when the Sun tore through the winter’s rags
as if with a thousand swords of light

And then there was silence
because his searing flames engulfed all
and I couldn’t see
I couldn’t hear
I couldn’t smell
I couldn’t taste
anything but
you

And it burned through me
it soared through my body
and my being was created into light
light burning with your absence

You'd think it was summer
the way all my tears evaporate before they form
the way my tongue burns with ecstatic song
all ready to envelop you
all in vain

So close and yet a world away
you smile and sigh,
but in your absence I am blind
and cannot see you

26.3.2012 • hey there you

hey there you
little girl in those
perfectly fitting
baggy adult clothes
you don’t fool me
I could see through them from ten leagues away

hey there you
transparent little girl
who swallowed the sun
and pretends to be a stone-hard opaque
you won’t fool me ever
the sunlight pierced straight through everything it shouldn’t
and now I carry it always inside