People in desperate situations.
golden hope and
roses
cold in the morning
coming in. Italy – Rome
- I could be here.
pigeons burst past my balcony
scared by a girl on a vespa
and someone in shirtsleeves
is smoking a cigarette. my view
is over an alley
but high enough to catch the sun.
I am not working
but my girlfriend is in her office
putting together a play. that is perhaps
why we are here. something going on
in a famous roman theatre; an opera
or some quiet winesodden thing
about people on holiday
in desperate situations.
today I will tap my feet
on rounded bricks
and I will sink my hands in my pockets
like well-diving.
hummingbird thoughts
buzz my brain.
they are
are nothing important
but nonetheless
they come in
at times like this.
Melissa.
I buy eggs in the morning,
poached
with toast
and piles of butter. it is
expensive.
everything
in Kensington
is expensive.
junkies lounge in the sun
looking like the soul of Lou Reed.
red flowers
burst out of windowbaskets
and birds chase squirrels in the trees.
I buy my breakfast
and yours
at 11am. black coffee for me
and hot chocolate.
you
are worth
expensive breakfasts
and all that’s in the flat is oatmeal. you
would be worth it
to fly
from Paris to Mongolia,
from Toronto
to Suriname. your eyes
are as big as teacups
and your skin
is like fresh milk. there is a thing in the sky.
it is
a red thing.
it is the sun.
It’s easy, because all you need is a metaphor.
poetry
is simpler than prose. don’t let anyone
tell you otherwise. all these poets
who write like tame lions
and act like they
are unspooling gods fishing line
don’t know what they’re up against.
prose v poetry – the title fight.
and it’s easy, because all you need is a metaphor
and not to think for a while about anyone but you. stories are hard
because they take longer
and you have to spend more time lying to people.
poetry though? no arcs to deal with,
no narrative,
just butterflies
pinned to the page
and only flickering
when you blow on them. chief,
you think you’re doing anything here
but typing? you never even gave the girl a name
when you wrote her down.
The Waste Land’s Fire Sermon.
yes,
I read it in the original too,
in the way it was put down
before Pound got into it,
clipping with tweezers
and his robinson trap-light,
and it was all
quite bad,
very bad,
all rhyming couplets
and very much
styled
like classical poetry;
a to b to a to a,
steady drips
like a toilet refilling.
and Eliot?
he must have
knew it too,
he must have known
where he wanted to go
but not
what it took to get there;
laying down traintracks
instead of blowing off dandelion seeds.
and while it’s good now
though without as much sense
he still called Pound a craftsman
and I don’t know about that;
a hatcheteer
maybe,
a chiseler
of blocks.
someone rip out
birds feathers, not
make candlesticks.
I guess
he never had read the cantos.
I have.
they were worse
even
than he was.
Very embarrassing.
bumping into you
drunk
and having once again taken up smoking
is very embarrassing
especially with you with your new boyfriend
and me with my old coat
a few more holes since you last saw it,
a bit more grease from my hair having polished the collar,
and having bragged at length about the scars I’ve gotten lately
it is tonight too dark to see them.
cora,
you are something that people only get to touch once
in churchlike silence
before remembering
and I know all the drunken phonecalls
which will happen now that I’ve seen you
will lead to nothing
but me
being in love again
and you
continuing to be happy
with a better life that smells of lemons
and tastes fresh as green tea and blackberry leaves
with a guy who stands there quietly
holding your hand while we talk,
falling asleep