Wednesday 30 January 2019

Origami Swan


You lifted your father's burden above your head.
It stayed there for a second, then it crushed you whole.
Flat underneath the wheels, you waited days until
your breath came back. You filled your lungs with mighty song
and let the strangest note escape. It melted glass,
it shattered steel, it strengthened both the tracks
and turned each broken wheel and saw you stand up straight.
Emerging from this homespun chaos, you were two
dimensional, a sliver of your former self.
Paper thin, not seen sideways, you folded your body
into a hand-made origami swan and beat
your wings, a farewell to this world, and flew,
frail silhouette, in front of that late evening’s sky.
You flew until you could be seen no more, no more.


Pointlesly Exasperated


Because other drivers are cretins,
TV is insultingly banal,
the weather is abysmal,
pop music is dead,
tattoos are everywhere,
£3.50 for a cup of coffee is normal,
Madonna is still famous,
Beige-Paint-Chart politicians are all equally clueless,
#I’maSanctimoniousTw@co.uk is trending,
there is now a market for male grooming products,
Morrissey became an embarrassment,
and other people’s spineless online anonymity
encourages and enables them
to spit more poison than a room full of rattlesnakes,
making society just a little
more hateful, fragile and combustible
than is good for it.
Why do they all hide?
What are they scared of,
these Pseudonymous Keyboard Combatants?
They seem to have a lot to say for themselves.
Maybe they could tell us their names?
But no, they won’t.
They’d rather lose their tongues.
And so, away they post, post, post,
their pathetic, ill-constructed, ignorant remarks
masquerading as wit or political insight,
just something else to make me
pointlessly exasperated.

Cats


My head’s stuck in a place where writing isn't,
and so I think, quite foolishly, I’ll write
a poem titled Cats. Why Cats, though?

I haven’t got a single thing to say –
whatsoever – about cats which hasn’t been
already said by some other ‘cat poet’.

I interview my cat. ‘Hey, cat!’ I say.
‘What is it cats like most? I’m trying to write
a poem and I need a starting point.’

Cat is unhelpful. This is no surprise.
She sits there staring at the door. I spend
the next half hour as ‘Keeper of the Gate.’

I tire of this endeavour, lock the door,
and thank cat for all of her help. She looks
at me, then sits upon my open notebook.