No Pablo Neruda
Essays on life, work and literatureArchive for September, 2009
Stupid Email
I hate my back breaking
Thankless task of asking
Leave to file at court
In plastic sleeves.
I dream of deepest oceans
Where there is no cause for Motions.
Can’t a minute pass,
A thankless task, remain unasked
and wasted
Time is all mine
To waste in books, and looks
In aft directions
Won’t limit my superiors
Affections?
*
After all the work
I poured into
The editing and
Following through
Your chastisements
A bitter fruit
I wear pinned
To my corporate suit
And what I want is,
I confess,
One nod of your
Most pleasantest
Agreement to the work
I’ve done. In summer
Burning, the shadowed sun
Is made of paper leaves
And files, and roads of joy
Are impeded by
Photocopied stiles.
*
I hate this message
Sitting in my inbox,
Cursor flickers on
The words that say
What I did wrong,
When all I want is
One small nod
Of pleasure
In the sod
I’ve turned in
Court proceedings,
Please can’t you just
Check these pleadings.
Instead I see
I could do better
Because this was not done to
Letter
And all I want
Is to be unfettered
From rule and from
Your malediction
That I feel
From this affliction
Of cautions and
Your shallow words
As if all I’ve said
Was never heard.
Better the Devil you Know
Bet you never knew I had the balls
To take you up on that small offer.
When the porch light switched on that night
You were roused from a quick dead sleep.
I stood hand in hand behind my back and watched
Your woken shadow creep to the door, and love and more.
*
Had you thought beyond the first real moment
When we leapt into decision, you would notice
I was smiling with enjoyment, not derision,
And how my heart had soared at warnings
I’d forgone the other morning, because I knew
That if we did the promised things we wanted to
We’d never turn toward this street, our lives would
Part from between sheets.
*
Are you ready, pull up close and I’ll let you in
In my idling car, while stars above are twinkling down
I’ll wipe away your frown. You see, this is done for you and me
And between us I know there will be no end to
Lost and dusty mornings, spent with arms outstretched and
Yawning, with sunsets boozy and raindrops glistening
The only open chorus listening, the crickets knees
Are bouncing back and you can see there’s just one track
To dark and foreign destinations, what a wonderful sensation.
A House
I want to lift the leaf over my head to keep out the rain
And watch the legs of the ladybugs creep along in the soil,
While the dancing crickets marry song into the night
And I forget about trouble and relieve a life’s toil.
*
I want to stoke my mushroom fire with clover and dirt
And hold up the ceiling with anemone and rose
While the dove calls from its nest and calls on the light
And fades away when the first dew drop’s descent slows.
*
The speckled vermillion and carrot roof of my house
Withstands any weather while the underground spring seeps
But nothing disturbs the lavender heads that prop up the walls
When I’m sunk into slumber and the day walkers sleep.
*
A safe glen under leaf in the harbour of bowery
While the daffodil chorus of wind is ascendant
I want to be myself supine in the soil of a garden
Free from concrete and corporeal form, natural and resplendent.
*
Rouge Red
How much we desire departure
From those coloured rooms.
The beds where rumpled bodies lay
The hulking figures loom.
The wives that wring their hands at night
Like roses wet from storms
Their wilting petals wash away
And time, she yawns.
*
How much we desire an end
To satisfied and of no friend
Desires in sticky mattresses
And thoughts disposed
Like old matches.
*
The flare blooms on its tiny end
But such a rupture it creates
The need of one to obviate
The other there to supplicate.
*
And how much we desire an end
To modesty that money lends
Commodity and wends
Its way into each wilting heart.
*
The private part, its aging leaves
For more respect, it grieves.
Once More Unto The Breach
I don’t want to be here now
In the coffin architecture
Of the office prow.
I don’t want to go this way
Into stolid circumspection
Of easing frays.
I want to reach up, reach wide
And feel sunshine light
On my freckled flesh.
I want the best, only, the very best
And the rest disempowered
By its uselessness.
