I was her basajuan
[on her mountains]
where lives were all
or nothing – ancient
ways of woodlands
& forests – with less
knowledge – only a
mythical whisper of
a protective man – I
now hide from thrill-
seekers [& tall tales
about my old ways]

This is normal – here – now –
against veneers – an unkind
grin [a bilious funk of newer
threats] – their hiemal ways
in these days of grabs [& of
grunts] in other beds – they
come as lines yank them off

A first-person singular sigh –
[& a narcissistic poke] tug at
brief love & redacted’s parts
[You’ll be told it wasn’t done
for you] You will be driven to
throwing up/ This normality
in a long week-in-the-life-of

A received letter of delusion
reads as if it was typed blind
by hear-no-evil monkeys – &
sent second class/ Well – is it
no wonder [we suspire] hate
& cannot face our lost past?
Our dissevers will never heal

I had lived with imperfections
for too long – mine & others’
[scuffed footings – foundation
diggings – another storey not
expected] – we’ll never build –
not to such an allowed height
even with planned permission
[even then we shouldn’t have]
You do not set out without a
plan to hand – you’ll measure
first & fix a price with old men

Circle your bed with salts
as if a white loop or hoop
or halo [a round God ring]
So my terms of surrender
had read – I had skimmed
her documents – then laid
her anticipated line / Fine
print we can see – but will
not read / Her nudity was
a perfect sans script font
Easy for eyes to examine
even if we find difficulties
in deferring to one who is
wordblind [her old excuse
used too many times – No
read as On – A lie rewinds]

Repeat after me that long-known word
Our first-person singular pronoun

I

Now hold off your birl of cogitations
about other lives spinning from you

Too fast!

They will only weave loose concerns
into your mind off slip stitched threads

We warm containers of

best before

do not sit too well if left too long on shelves

Sleep without disturbing your private view
Do not crowd others’ centre stage marks

Give in to rested dreams – only to those –
and you’ll not be sliced on such barbed wires

 

You were a low-slung
holdall of hot tears
in my useless arms

like those strained bags
of fairground goldfish –
ones eventually flushed

Not my choice of dance
either – in an empty place
at this time of life –

too much to yearn
after your choosing
of others’ routines?

Another unasked
question left to quell
as my discomfort rises

Seller’s remorse kicks in
as you consider my
boxed up possessions?

Do not answer me
and score higher points
of pity from our audience

Let me leave untouched
without your wept stains
on my dropped shoulders

as salted marks of high rank –
which you had removed
in a previous court-martial

---

Look in on yourself
for thyself’s approof
be your own witness –
never seek such belief
from outside yourself –
from those’ll forbid us –
they break brittle vanities
by censuring certainty

For each life to have significance
it needs to be led by awareness

Do not stand off from others
like those diffident observers

You must embrace loved moments
as you move through slowed days

of small actions and interactions
so your short time is truly valued

There is an art to such attention
which is not taught at any school

Let your magnifying glass pause –
learn from the immodest instances

Tie the loose laces of another’s shoe
into the tight knot that they prefer

Become versed in their fingered turns –
how their interactions are directed

You should not steal their thoughts
as you stumble in their taken steps

Only consider how they measure
from their own eyes looking back

And live without your own thoughts
colliding in this time with inner fictions

Then you can walk at your own pace
with – or without – others

I have to measure my responses
and weigh the more foul energies

against those that lift me to you –
a conversion to a way with propriety

I should sacrifice for the lost dead
and keep their spirits at a burnt distance

and so find equilibrium in the overhead
tug and pull of ghosts and lost gods

but not give in to the religious fervour –
the lies of any other life but this one

I am becoming
that old chatty man,
looking out for
shared interests,
and engaging
with dogs and kids,
boring the parents
with my apocryphal
announcements:
note to self,
shut up.

Friday lunchtime
and a tall pint of Guinness,
I enter the calories –
two hundred added,

less the few quid
of change in my pocket,
this is weight watching
with drunken benefits.

Touch lightly his then bared back,
so harden his limp-loose skin,
walk close into unplanned shadows,
test his strength in kisses of sin,
offer yourself over would-be lovers,
those harpies who prop the bar,
remove him from lowly temptations,
place your centre in his cold hands,
let his fingers then loosen your hair,
and pull hard on your buttoned-self,
strip him down in your unsaid dreams,
gorge on him, let him fill, live well.

---

 

They swayed on the deck
under throat-music chants,
heel-spun, with babies,
holding hope in their hands:
Welcome to Europe,
across uneasy borders,
where choices are streamed,
and the future’s disordered.

---

 

---

And how to use
this allocation
well: Connect
with the same,
do not allow
any form of abuse,
become a philosopher
(or a published poet),
evacuate your mind
of ill-thoughts,
whatever you do
don’t be efficient;
meditate daily,
embrace all love,
do not delay
and waste less time:
Always avoid,
whenever possible,
an early death
(look both ways).

---