Magnifying Glass on top of Boswell’s Life of Johnson.

Magnifying Glass on top of Boswell’s Life of Johnson.

Concave or convex in the midmost of his imagination
A Samuel Johnson at large would view under the glass
The world of creatures that do not inhabit the orthodox
Or conventional opionion, he would find there a novel
Relation of enlarged perspective, a newly discovered wit
There he humours the reflected moods of Robert Burton,
So then sad Hamlets perplexed by the ghosts of fathers
Would transfigure mothers into a gigantic melancholy
Which on board would transport Samuel to the Far East,
This coveted and idealised past, this fabulous version
Is an indraught of history which the lonely granivorous
Have with their mueseli, their oats and their sunflower
Seeds can only suffice if they travel no further than a bus route,
For the fucking billionaire the limit is set only by the Space
That is much further and out of the pocket of life ordained
By economy, for we can only get as far as obtainable
Like the tiny speck of dust teeming with allegies and mite
Under this dirt cheap, ten kroner magifying glass
Lying on top of Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson.

For C who has gone to a Meeting

For C who has gone to a Meeting.

What is the thrill of the place, except for its novelty,
It is not here, but there, separated by a T,
As if this game could convince me like a Sudoku
Puzzle, something I could never quite understand,
Since it's numbers and not letters, yet you will I am sure
Work through one on the train, and the equation
Might equal the very thought I have, to the decimal
Point carried to what extreme? to freedom, liberty
And what is this that tags along, but stupid jealousy,
Anyway, it is not the same, you are not here, but there,
Should I infer this as a kind of secret rendevous
Like two lovers in times of resistance try to find a clandestine
Spot to embrace and fuck, the interdict forces it to be quick,
Otherwise they will be shot at will, is that my stupid jealousy
Armed with suspicion that casts these ridiculous aspersions,
Pumping up with adrenalin, the word meeting with all possible
Connotations – I met you is that just short of I know you?
And in a bible thumping definition, that they met and it was
... bad,
Do they break bread and generally partake of each other?
What the hell am I supposed to do with this meeting?
Challenge the banns, is there any unreasonable reason
Why these two or more people should not gather
Associate, converse, discuss in public social intercourse?
Yes, because you are THERE and I am HERE and I am
Separated from the letter C who has gone to a "meeting"
For what seems to be for more than an eternity.

The Cream Curtains

The Cream Curtains

The cream curtains the colour of buses in the South of England
Are drawn and retired, behind or rather in front, the wilted
Pepper plant, its fruit shrivelled like the hearts of pensioners
Almost finished, the neglect telling, the leaves once green and
Fresh, now brittle and forgotten, the bus replete with analogies
Drives past the window sill while from inside the secondhand
Maria Callas reaches in shakey cassette tape the high note
In one of those operas by someone, Puccini's or was it Rossini’s?
The potted plant at a distance of a few centimetres from the red
Peppers has a single composite flower struggling like the woman
To keep her head above water in the home where hope has dried
Out, the mixed metaphor like a pill for a case that is now terminal.

The Room Stilled

From behind a framed postcard of the Zeppelin,
Spring two antennae, as if they were in an alien
Farce, the ears of a rabbit, on top of the television,
The passport photograph superfluous to needs,
In vanitas useless, a fossilized sea urchin, an ecinoidean
Without spines, smooth black except for a chalky
Ladder of plates, to imagine this once inhabited
The marine world, millions of years ago, not thousands,
The television is on standby, the colour is kapputted,
Its red eye signals its intention - and the control panel
Is loose like a redneck’s slack jaw, ”Whatdeyermean?”
The descriptive narrative has only a vacumm, does it not
Rosemary? Here, I hear in Penguin book the sounds
Of the Hittite advance in cuniform design to take out
The artefacts of the 21st century and crown their version
Of events today, on this day, in the month of March.

Empty Promises Poster

A Poetry Book of Thirty or So Pages

A Poetry Book of Thirty or So Pages

For Rosemary Tonks wherever she may be

On the back, no, the brink of an evening

he schemed to follow in matter of course

the tone and tenor of Rosemary Tonks

beginning with an image of a bed with

curled up ramshackled sleeping bag

gutted by use, its innards coming out

like teddy bear's stuffing material

pulled out by a child that has clearly

outgrown and lost its will to believe

in fairy tales

the zipper, a deviant, a truant, as in

1950's sociology text lingo, "coming

off tracks", an oxbow of seam exposes

the cold like the flies of a late night

park flasher,

there lies the companion, an orange

and yellow checker board blanket

of synthetic textile with undisclosed

body fluid stains that patch the field

as dried up lakes upon the length

and breadth of

Siberia

In refuge, maybe the cat flea denizen

of detritus, waiting with the patience

of a thousand Jobs to bite and suck

without pleasure, to make one itch

to scratch, this arthropod upon which

a Miriam Rothschild spent a life,

jumps, no, leaps to the flatus of the

narrative, an air of crudity, winding

pathetically past its read by time.

Rosemary how do you take your coffee

or tea, one lump or two, or is it still

too sweet by half? Still with the bed

now it has congress with your mattress

February has gone, now we are in March,

the Iliad has yielded its pages to the Ides -

Beware of the poem, it is no Elysium,

on closer inspection, must we do this?

the stains impress one with the stamp

of love, love is not a cappucino nor a Vesper

motor scooter anymore, it is undefined

for the moment, now the flea of Miriam

leaps, no, jumps to the following Room.

The Swing

Delight in the swing, hazard the future,

will she or he take a fall, and the floral frame

garlands the aristocratic fad for the countryside

at the same time the voyeur looks up the dress

what to see a petticoat - how sad that the scene

has been compared like butter with margarine

with the swing in memory, its rusty and noisy

chain, the seat with I love whoever carved

with penknife into the wood, the thirteen year

olds acting tough smokes cancer and fucking

each other into years of benefit and low income

drinking cider and supping a lifetime abuse

as she pretty thing, swings into high ART

for the critic to appraise her gentle sex

to hazard a guess at the weight of his desire

by the theory and method, whereas the swing

in the local estate symbolises lack of amenities

she makes herself more amenable to the EYE

than the kid snotty trying her damn hardest

to get higher, higher and so much HIGHER.