Gravity
There will be a moment where you sit and feel the air move past you,
where you are aware of the night in motion,
when life is not imagined.
The ongoing humour, meetings and acquaintances,
fleeting cups of coffee and the odd hiatus.
None of it happens until the most liquid pull of gravity,
in mind and strength,
arrives to the point where a religion is not so far away.
These are shibboleths culminating as a material breeze,
atomised from the acceleration of orbit.
You hold on with,
although accomplished sea legs,
every now and then
experiencing a green and biley tummy.
Plasma – you are in it.
You are it.
And it sears like opera,
climbing matter in a baroque of scale.
Air is jelly, you swim in its void
until the magnet tumbles you to a verdant,
sepia rose
interlacing the wisteria of a high-walled garden;
the lucid exactitude of a G&T;
and the ebony keys of a mint-green upright piano.
Plas Teg
Wire hair scattered her head,
leopard print pants
clutch cold legs.
A black eye
shadows her brow,
making clay skin
and pearlescent sheen.
Shifting stones and
chipping Jacobite staircases:
replenishing the dewed house –
taking the big tree away,
taking 26 years and storing them
inside statues,
moss-carpeted pathways,
and snail-etched window-frames.
Nature tip-toeing in,
in stiletto heels.
Girl Shroud
Loudhailer.
A world of microphonic chanting.
Mosque to mosque,
the pitch and tremer …
a sound-map emerges.
Ascending into soporificity,
turning into condensation
as the song sweats from
hot mountains.
Girl shroud.
Until morning dusk.
Calling her wisdom
into leather hands
holding God.
Algos (Revisited)
A familiar freshness of vapour,
the chiaroscuro of timeless
kisses on foreheads.
It moves from the summer jacket,
from one felty bus chair to the next.
The suit houses the handsome man
who’s on his way to work,
his perfumed lapel
manifesting memory.
A cloud of the past,
dispensed into air and atomic history,
re-creating you, with me,
on the 73.
Rosebery Avenue (Downhill)
Gold days where mornings begin,
high speed,
arms grasping fresh air,
with glittered eyes and scarlet cheeks.
Grey Matter
Folded hands turn into boats for protection, for mending.
Alabaster skin, the sun flecks on the creases in her metaphors,
the patterns in her grammar like semibreves – his falling grey matter.
The longest note,
decanting down into the Giant,
him holding out his favourite tarnished tankard.
Cerebral atrophy,
the kindest eyes.
Glass
At times when there is only breath between yours
and mine, my legs, your limbs,
where there may be time to eat and feast upon minutes
or miasmas, who knows.
But there are edges of her hands that have not touched,
anything other than her battles and worn velvetine gowns
drenched in blood.
That said, he was clasping his digital anecdote with nothing other than
buckets for feet, which were as cold as iced rivers.
High as the interstellar freeway,
my head collapsed like cotton sheets blown to the ground,
orange eyes saw graph paper skies and
quixotic neon capsules – I flew, not you.
You went somewhere else, apparently,
but I kissed your glass skin
and followed you to sleep.
Hands
We held on to hands,
it was ok.
The reliance
had to go …
with beauty.
We choked at endings,
but realised the world.
Alphabets and Oboes
Water placed into caramel,
the thick wetness subdued
– with an additional insect on the side.
Learning numbers and letters,
alphabets and oboes,
warmth like a night jumper …
Becoming-She.
Becoming-Jumper.
Which Day
Flip flops, strewn on the ground,
bottles cut in to varses,
making holders in the trees.
Hot coffee,
accidentally strong enough to
wrench a man from his bed.
Staring and squinting
as the day buzz begins.
Not sure whether it’s Wednesday,
or Tuesday,
or Saturday for that matter.
The giving up pack
of tobacco.
Never seen so many men smoking,
replacing that liquor
with the liquorice paper.
Mechanical fixing,
a neighbour puts their
bike together.
Ready to whizz away,
and join the tropical speedway.
To Be Grateful
Conclusively …
this day has to be taken with:
3 x large shots of irony,
1 x attempt at an application of rationality,
1 x handful of non-projectionist, here-and-now reality,
and 1 x omnipresent pinch of salt.
Sit down on the smallest chair you can find
(so you feel a little taller than usual),
drink the day with a side salad of acquiescence –
knock it back with the dexterity you display at the local pub
on your nights out.
And remember the beauty of your luck.
***
yeoldefinch 