Truss tissues

“Believe me,” he said;

which meant I im-

mediately didn’t. &

that more a testament

to my cynicism than to

his lack of credibility.

A done deal

He refused to talk

about the past.  It’s

a done deal he

would say, something

you cannot change

even if you wanted

to.  That was the

public face. Privately

he was reinventing it,

rearranging it in a way

that made it more

palatable to remember,

more profitable for a

later presentation.

A Mango Mantra

      i.m. RKS

It is the longest night of the year.

I am thinking of you tonight. A

circuitous route as to how I got

here, starting off by turning poems

over in my head, one in particular

coming to mind, no special significance

in it, apart from the time of writing.

Tipping & I intoning a mango mantra

onto a tape which we sent off, a variety of

intonations as in man go, woman goes also,

through to Vincent Man Gogh. & then

the thought of the fruit itself, & the ideal

way to prepare it, to slice it & then score the

flesh so that when bent it presents itself

as a series of mango cubes, edible LEGO®.

A faint but bitter memory

Jerked us around

she did, telling us to

go here, to go there, no

place recognizable,

each much the same

as the last, as the

others.  Finally

came to one we did

recognize — she saying

look, they obviously don’t

know who you are, don’t

trust you, but they know

me, will deal with me.

Give me the money &

I’ll be back in five minutes.

Fame & Fable

It seems that many of the

inventors still talked about

never saw their work brought

into being — take da Vinci’s

lens grinder, Babbage’s Diffe-

rence Engine. Others talked,

made things, but never existed.

Are equally celebrated for the

failures of their fables. Such as

Daedalus’ who has a plinth to

himself — the wings with wax

which melted & cast Icarus

into the sea, the labyrinth on

Crete unraveled by a thread.

The circus comes to town

The precision of the acro-

bats & the random actions

of the clowns contrast to

create a tension which

the ringmaster disperses

when he slices through it

whipcracking on a white

horse & surrounded by

his elegant assistants.

But the progress of the

circus parade is still dic-

tated by the pace of the

elephants & the amount

of shit they leave behind.