#2420 --- under my hat -- a kalpom alatt

 

2420

7.227

17.viii.26

under my hat

 

just these stray indications

 

such as let us call a sky

 

today’s poem foments

 

it’s a zoo too

 

favourite animals gather

 

great schemes

 

under my hat much betterment

 

I thought of you

I am thinking of you

 

here is the best idea

soon surpassed

 

another and another

in fairytale fine plumage

 

sometimes a line rolls over to wrestle

 

I’m flaneur under this little umbrella

just a head to hold it all up

 

a run of dreams persisting

 

did I mention the pictures?

you could open a museum

 

metaphor mixmaster

and as for metonymy, I’m beside myself

I’d turn inside out for a good synechdoche

 

further down

this pumping drum

keeps the show afloat

 

words right up to the edge of a world

 

lightning and thunder

even I’m impressed

 

sleep’s tucked up in a corner

 

various precious things must be kept in mind

 

they’re all queueing, they’re trying to keep up

 

page rubbing off on another

 

it’s only under my hat

I begin to understand the scale of catastrophe

 

a bed in my head

head on a bed

 

I hope for rest

some modest covering

 

such a flag to fly!

so much!

so many!

 

from the garden to the garden

in a garden now

 

I take off my hat to lay me down

for the heart to heart

for that silence of ours

 

your head on the next pillow

 

 

 

 

 

a kalapom alatt

 

csak ezek a kóbor jelek

 

például nevezzük eget

 

a mai versem szítja

 

ez is egy állatkert

 

gyűlnek a kedvenc állatok

 

rád gondoltam

rád gondolok

 

flaneur vagyok e kis esernyő alatt

csak egy fej, hogy mindent megtartson

 

említettem már a képeket? nyithatnál egy múzeumot

 

villámlás és mennydörgés

még én is lenyűgözött

 

az alvás egy sarokban van elrejtve

 

egy ágy az agyamban

agy egy ágyon

 

remélem a pihenést

valami szerény takarót

 

micsoda zászlót lobogtatni!

annyi minden!

 

kerttől kertig

egy kertben most

 

leveszem a kalapom, hogy lefektessem

a szívemért

a mi csendünkért

 

a fejed a következő párnán

 

#2419 -- in the salt mine

 

2419

7.226

16.viii.26

in the salt mine

 

once was sea

 

now everything –

floor, wall, ceiling

salt

 

with a pickaxe, with a hammer

 

gnomes overnight

up to old tricks

 

so many steps

and rails and carts

 

whole forest

holding it up

 

all done with tallow lamps

 

blinkered beasts raise water

 

doors and halls

all carved

 

a statue of the king in the mountain

 

of course a dragon

that’s for luck

 

it’s the miracle we’re here

 

knock and you’re led off

 

rope ladders

slippery poles

 

a good ghost

looks after

 

a pillar thereof

no looking back

 

and when the dark comes

and the dark will come

 

you could get lost down here

 

#2418 -- a birch tremble

 

2418

7.225

15.viii.26

a birch tremble

 

how lovely the woods

before the way

when no one’s here to see

not a leaf’s out of place

 

just the idea of squirrel

the colour of bird

 

how lovely the heart

before the church is built

before the bricks are piled

when mind is open to the sky still

 

just the wings, all sizes, shapes

just the clouds gone by

 

it’s wonderful the poem

how its truth is known

before we find the words

 

sound and sign suffice

 

some say awe

that the day declines

to this least breeze

    this tremble

 

and further still

         to stars

#2417 -- yet another last judgement

 

2417

7.224

14.viii.26

yet another last judgement

ekphrastic for Hieronymous Bosch van Aken’s c. 1550 ‘Last Judgement’

 

some bestial business, the antics of insects

 

the gulp, the excrescence

 

a certain amount of skull

ladder to the open egg

 

mainly it’s sex

 

the monkey faces

and everyone surrenders to

this is how it goes

 

some are pregnant, some give birth

 

little thrones for minor demons

 

 

you get an arrow in the bum

there’s a trumpet there too

knives to make the point

 

pig in nun’s habit for your pleasure

 

some protect themselves from the sun

   with long playing records

 

duck, crouch down

 

bags of wind, punishment queues

surfing on a tide of blood

all thw magic tricks

 

lie down – be consumed

 

do it

you know you want to

 

the ones with wings prod you on

 

and it’s the last chance

 

spill the entrails

become a tree

 

the city is burning just as imagined

 

that just happens to be how we’re here

 

there are a few sleep through it all

they know life is but a dream

 

#2416 -- all teeth

 

2416

7.223

13.viii.26

all teeth

ekphrastic for Si On’s ‘The Magic of Women and Other Stories’

 

suppose a body

of shattered mirrors

 

so the skull shows branded

        ribs tell

              itch

 

smooth where you see into the wall

 

and so perhaps you too reveal

 

dangle of chains, innids plastic

 

mostly we’re on fire

 

words beaten from a grief

 

or love spew

 

a dysphoric flower

 

lolly, gun, grip

 

the slippers empty now

 

mainly, though, the teeth

 

#2415 -- life is a tree

 

2415

7.222

12.viii.26

life is a tree

 

always was

 

a tree where I’m not

and a tree where I am

 

fingers of light fell through

 

a sky lit day, night

more than one

but many

 

so the seasons for the record

 

so a city is these ruins made

 

life is a tree however

 

saw myself, puddle up

 

we, too

a voice lost

 

claws gone

in among branches

 

see the brickwork, paint gone

 

a song like smoke

just a breeze to take home

 

we will build another tree, they say

 

who’ll see through how?

 

a tree was always there

 

some come from it, bow

as limbs to a breeze

and gather

 

all that is lost

to the air

to soil

 

sometimes out of the crack in a cliff

from nowhere

thin as air

 

the seed puts out

with gravity

rises as it falls

 

life is a tree

shows how to become

 

a pause and the rings run round

 

the very stars in awe

 

a tree shines

in the hours unkept

 

shows what it is to be

winning the inaugural Southerly Prize