Awake

 

Awake

 

And in the end, 

maybe paper plates -

or the best china that could be mustered?

After all, you claimed no fuss was best,

so, let's lay this all to rest.

 

What woke you, who knows?

Around  pillows and sheets it rolls –

perhaps the cold.

 

Or wretched, uncooked Irish youth

you share this block with - kids

returning from celebrating cracks

beyond compare

and pissed as cock-doodle-doo,

puking rainbow-hued shades of deep purple.

 

Maybe those interminable rumbles as Doha

cools, contracts and fractures;

creating infinitesimally small splinters

deep in concrete and sandstone

grumbling about weight and load.

 

Perhaps just the ice that forms

in your night's AC

clattering like bucket-rattlers

digging up twilight's weeds,

tugging grass heads gone to seed.

 

Fatal. Don't look at the clock.

For as soon as you do – the shock

of fears rearing like cobra headlights –

you're stuck in quicksand, the fight

seeps from your skin,

pores opening,

fixed blinking,

clinging onto fragments of dream,

comforting or otherwise.

 

That's it, then. 1am.

Doomed to toss -

a lost sailor in an inflatable rubber boat,

an armored knight unable to float

watching green tentacles of moat

surge, each trough deeper than the last,

oncoming waveforms that overlap

and crack like waves on shores

too distant to reach.

 

She swims into view, funereal,

lines of filled pews,

choked sobs, stifled howls,

her outsize casket makes its stately way

between the hassocks and prayers –

you wished them incarnate,

then washed them away, wiped the slate

in a paroxysm of guilty shame.

 

Then, find yourself grasping levers

at the points of the trolley problem -

it's a switchback;

you constructed thousands of them

on living room carpets when small,

until vapors of age seized

you -  old man watching grandchildren

shriek delight

at fast-approaching daylight.

 

The future is coming, faster than you'd like,

two years, three at best

to spend with one you love

who fits snugly like textured gloves,

before a return

to that sulky sullen dame

who will not budge

and obstinately remains.

Masarap

 

Masarap

 

It was just compulsion, call it OCD

if you want – I checked for mixed seeds

and baked bread. Why? Hard to say –

well, maybe to see if it had gone away

or wasn’t totally lost – authenticity,

the idea of creating something of use

after weeks spending wasted time

returning emails, messages, spreadsheets,

like you’re back beyond the baseline

hitting dropshots that always net –

oh, they’ll get you yet, Penelope Pitstop.

Bought yeast from Palengke, where MJ

wanton behind sultry eyes, says –

‘Give me.’ So, after it was risen, I cut

the dough, made two pillows enough

and gave it to her full floured.

More than just a snapshot, she devoured

hunks with her eyes, then later told me:

‘Masarap, Sir. I wash it in my coffee,

eat all up, so nice.’ and with heavy

heart now light of touch, come back to you

peachy in the bedroom – doing as you do

too much – ‘Hurry,’ I said, ‘it’s past nine,’

but with succulent smiles, you reply,

‘I am woman, it takes time,

to make myself a pleasure for your eyes.’

Every Little Thing

 

Every Little Thing

 

If they say they love – you care less

because one person’s wit

is just another person’s shit

and you believe that intelligence

is only a measure of how often

you get to do it your way.

When she comes to you,

her pupils dilated, her face flushed

and words that tumble in a rush;

more often than not you push back -

your chair from the desk, that is,

from where you’re prone –

all you ever wanted was to be alone,

get some work done,

think some.

Every little thing she brings

is apropos of nothing,

some small-scale issue, something wrong

that could be righted

with less effort than it takes

to refloat a toy yacht in the bath.

You say as much, she laughs,

because she knows it, enjoys your tongue

tripping – exasperation, mock sarcasm –

while her eyes become caverns

within which you both could retreat,

lie a little, explore,

roll away the stone from the door,

slip your fumbling fingers in,

unzip, unhitch and knead like dough

until both loaves prove

you each were right.

How easy it would be –

child’s play, you dare say,

enjoyable, fulfilling – as each day

it comes ever nearer by halves,

and thank Christ, for Tennyson –

all those half-a-leagues it took to gain nothing

but the valley of death,

and give us this day our daily bread

buttered by Zeno – all paradox

as open doors stay forever locked.

Nothin' But Air

 

Nothin' But Air

 

You would think she might have

run out of air, grasped the fact

that some of us don’t care –

have earned a holiday, a break,

but, no – look at your messages

and there’s more, for fuck’s sake.

Who can it be now, men at work?

No – some penny ante award,

a grubby, grasping exam board

issuing certificates willy-nilly,

desperate last gasps for publicity -

even cardboard’s worth more

than anything it gives credit for,

yet she feels the inner need

to oxygenate, satisfy greed –

or perhaps draw attention from

an abject failure to perform.

There’s the usual murder of crows

in delightful chorus, composed

of inane self-laudatory plaudits,

you’re thinking ‘bag of shite,’

they’re waking you up at night;

you wish you had the courage

to leave this group; its sludge,

but, shrug instead, bake bread.

As yeast ferments, it fills your head

with nothing but air, crusts form

over crumbled textures as warm

thermals rise from within the stove –

serenity drifts as dough proves.

The Lost Years

 

The Lost Years

 

Lennon had his lost weekend,

a booze-fueled haze

where the only music made

did not hold back the years –

although you’re partial to a bit

of sweet birds of paradox.

What did you get? Socks,

mostly, once handkerchiefs

were cancelled due to the nagging

doubt that pocketing a sopping

wet rag was outmoded.

You’d got another Secret Santa tie,

binned it with a sigh

because some narcissists never die,

then cast a suspicious eye

on the new year. What’ll it be?

There was an idea to explore

youth, cast a dispassionate look

at things that formed your mind,

memories that may or may not be real,

because although you feel them,

there is no real proof or veracity

in the coalescence. Intangible things –

let’s see what the year brings

then Trump bombs Iran,

and everything’s lost, replaced, canned -

it all seemed so important then.

You wonder if time’s wandering

abandoned in some fallow field

wanting a shepherd or a border collie?

Get down, Shep, we’ll find it yet.

Corral those lost years with a pen,

round them up, count them:

they’ll surely make a tidy sum

as your skin folds and what was young

is misplaced somewhere.

Still, you could always look

down the back of the sofa

or under the fridge:

When you lose something

it’s nearly always there, you think -

except when it isn’t.

Curmudgeon

 

Curmudgeon

 

I feel like a bit, sometimes,

of a morning in that liminal space

before sharpening my axe; beheading

those refusers of the call to wake.

I could do with it, feel the urge,

could bang on her chamber door,

have my fill and demand more –

because every dog’s due his day.

Instead, I hit the gym,

look at how my inbox has refilled

like my cistern after a long flush:

‘Sorry for the late message,’

exclamation mark, which I will not

reproduce here for its lack of wit.

Most of hers are shit –

products of a limited brain,

but I throw her a bone, due to the fact

that lately I am curmudgeonly.

When someone tasked me,

I said something along the lines of

‘The tragedy simply exists

because you can see systems,

feel symptoms, point at them and bay,

but they persist.’ But who can say

if any of this was gathered in?

So, I reply, ‘Any message you send

is but a delight, keeps me up at night,

fear not, for come daylight,

I’ll do thy bidding.’ Did no such thing,

but after the same spreadsheet came in

6 times - I counted - at last

I hurled myself from the kennel,

with thoughts of something penal

resulting from my violent unhammocking.

But, in less time it takes to stomach

Viagra, wash down a petit-four,

cast cursory looks or slam a door,

I was smacked up short with thoughts

of contend in vain, crumpled forts

and Birnam Woods v Dunsinane.

‘Oh, we are completely insane

to think this thumb, these digitigrades

lacking anything opposable could save

dykes from crumbling, plug the leak

by sticking it in.’ Therefore, my feet

to bed will wend their weary way

and beg the mistress to come play.

Abandoned

 

Abandoned

 

You don’t feel it – moving much, I mean.

Imagine a scheme

you had – eight weeks ago –

 

term’s beginning, hot ice flow

through sporadic permafrost veins,

a one-way ticket to the blues,

you’ve vacationed, now pay your dues,

boy – thought of filling manuscript

with random notes; kids playing it

because the kids are alright.

 

You’re thinking, ‘Damn me, revelation,

this’ll save a flailing nation,’

but toting a keyboard and amp to class

is too much like farce

when some litigious parent will claim ‘haram’.

 

The Inspectors came and went,

so you want to, but the band’s spent,

she’s floundering sultry on the sofa, all tits up,

chesting her disinterred violin,

in busty disinterest, wan grin

apologetic – you get it – she’d let you in

but won’t put her bow to the strings –

 

and as for him?

Cut his strumming fingers, split his nails,

tries arpeggios and fails,

‘Any chords but B,’ he wails,

without taking the trouble to clamp the capo

like a tourniquet.

 

‘Where’s RZ?’

Scuttled off absent without leave,

his keyboards sitting idle,

an uncased axe shunted in a siding

somewhere between here and Tehran –

 

plays when he can,

but there’s leitmotifs of looming cyber-attacks,

flatlined internets when their flack

starts droning overhead again.

 

Bassman’s plucking mixolydian modes:

‘What’s that one in?’ Doesn’t know –

calls out a sloppy something

like B Sharp Minor, slaps the open E string

until its buttocks are raw -

there’s nothing noted, nothing scored,

 

they’re gazing at the open door,

and wondering – until the drummer

throwing his sticks

declares – ‘that’s it, I quit,’

because you’ll get days like this – nothing clicks.