My sufferings
had me in knots from which
My poems kept aloof,
Untainted by the soul’s contamination.
Licking my wounds, overwhelmed by farewells,
I became weathered, for sure, but never
Frozen by the ice-blast of suppression.
That froth in the East is the dawn,
Though night allows her skirt to drag
Drunk in a doorway, out of tune;
But won’t I insist on discovering
The face of an angel before me
And make excuses for a single slip,
Ignoring a propensity for wantonness?
Haven’t I attributed my powers to the Tigris
– not that it’s ever noticed –
And sighed, in correspondence with the grass,
Which remains deaf when I sob like a child
over the dying of flowers?
No point in tarting up nature though,
Nor in revering its negligence.
Is a man scared by a scarecrow?
Countryside, strung on a clothes line.
Dogs kicked out, feral cats
Fossicking in the waste ground
of downtrodden projects
For what remains of the done-away-with.
The ass in my neighbour’s garage
May connect the old way with modernity,
But I can’t get out of my head that sardonic glance
Exchanged with the guy the dawn escorted away.
That angel may prove pretty vacant
When questioners tear you apart.