Thursday 23 February 2012

STAY UNDER YOUR SHEETS

all these great poets
were bedridden
beyond and before
Keats and Proust
all sleepy-headed whiners

lying supine
on the whitest of sheets
softens the teeming brain
for ripe foggy thoughts

hair upon the pillow
wide and small
brushed aside
renews the white vessel

red coughs cannot undermine
the snowy world
of rising jagged ridges
of shadowed rivulets
completing the foundation
for rocky, runny thoughts
in this haven for shiftlessness

when to read
is only to write
as time is still
amongst the shafts
of the tiny Himalayas

the squirm
we can call a movement
within the discipline
of hospital corners
and the wondrous white
of no-further

yoked by white
these three layers
the dull patchwork
that sighs mediocrity
and takes no prisoners
of ambition
of fame
only the occasional sock
or a particle of dead skin

a tall order
for the gown
of a virgin


(First appeared in Crack the Spine, Issue 4, December 2011).

Monday 13 February 2012

YOU WILL FLOAT ON YOUR PRIDE

Being very much from the old school of ‘I’:
I beckon, I plead, to see your multiple flairs.
I call back to what is chiselled on my heart
And report the findings for you to undermine
Yourself with. Ugly avarice is given cheap
Garments, by speaking the world’s truth in
Unfiltered air.

Now open up your head, let the breeze blow
Past so many failures of betrayal, leaving wild
Vagaries less distorted. But you have already
Jumped. Although you will float on your pride.