#2431 -- a blue god

 

2431

7.238

28.viii.26

a blue god

Vishnu ekphrastic

 

monkeys and bears

shakti is Lakshmi

 

tread on a demon

wrestle chaos

you cannot be over-bedecked

 

here, hold this snake

it’s a tug-o-war

you can’t have too many hands

 

we make up a picture of what’s yet to come

and this has all already been

 

there’s a boar, a man-lion

the plough holder

 

there’s the future’s warrior on horseback

 

who doesn’t like a nice bit of worship?

 

can’t have too many avatars

you can’t have too many names

 

but a good kip in the cosmic ocean

that’s just a typical day

... lotus rise, mud for complexion

 

who wouldn’t churn an ocean of milk?

 

rescue fair damsel from the sea floor?

 

who wouldn’t wear a halo?

 

here. hold my conch and mace

just give me a moment

a lolling tongue

 

you have to balance the earth on your tusks

 

sometimes you’ll need to work around the rules

to get things back on track

 

seduce a demon for immortality’s sake

 

every universe needs a protector

 

this one dances too

 

Krsna summons the gopis by way of his flute

 

shakti is Lakshmi

monkeys and bears

 

you can’t have too many avatars

 

the ultimate’s always yet to appear

#2340 -- jetlag

 

2430

7.237

27.viii.26

jetlag

 

I keep a shadow in a box

 

often the arbitrary object appears

cylindrical, calendrical

shape of a bucket

no words

I wish

but they will come

I’m fighting off the signs

 

sometimes I’m a fish

glow with the dawn

try not to let

 

there’s long before that

we’re stone

all turning

there’ll be frogsong

dim

try not to let the words

 

who’ll say a day is full of hours

processional as cloud?

 

touch now the covers

on an isthmus lit by stain

first kookaburra

first train

second

third

 

tides of light

in out which

such as a shape occurs

a face or

 

is it worth it?

scratch

 

shadow boxing

 

here’s rush of the headlong city

now we’re coming in to land

with a bump

and a bump

and here we are

all days ago that’s now

#2429 -- the body is a clock

 

2429

7.236

26.viii.26

the body is a clock

 

it takes a breeze to know one

 

touch of all these hands

 

we are searching for the night

tribe of us

listening out for it

wherever

 

even under all these hats

 

I am always receiving the sky

 

the rest of us are yet to be eaten

 

take it for granted

take it as read

 

all around the walls

dripping

any dark does

 

the sky of where we are

goes just up till gone

 

the hand’s now a map of what we have held

 

you can breathe in a garden

#2428 -- every birth is giving

 

2428

7.235

25.viii.26

every birth is giving

ekphrastic for Semiha Berksoy’s ‘Aria of All Colors’ Retrospective at Istanbul Modern

 

show claws or they won’t see you

 

it’s as with a flame too high

too bright to be seen

 

one must sing!

 

it’s how we make justice of hurt

 

and shall we say half the human race?

 

everyone has a voice to throw

we all lie down later

 

one body folds from another

body takes body in

 

that’s where the colour comes by brush

 

the possible is equal parts

what was not, what won’t, what cannot be

 

dress up to fall through this door

 

a winding cloth to sunbright

 

mother and so death

plaintive fragile

 

one must sing!

 

animal after all

quick getaway

 

self is what birth’s given

that’s just the tree gone up

 

with often a tinsel stage howl

 

how many eyes in a head?

 

they, too!

 

with tears

but fall from another place

 

to be alive is love

to be gone is just as good

 

the tune still on the lips

still meaning

 

one passes through this flimsy pall

into the light of day

 

#2427 -- Şerefiye Sarnıcı

 

2427

7.234

24.viii.26

Şerefiye Sarnıcı

time’s slow drip

 

like stalacmites, Cortinthian order

in the custody of ages

 

under this town, another

a name under a name

 

echo of the steps

a screaming child

 

this precious gleam –

ray thrown in for shadows

 

seven sleepers now long gone

 

witness the wearing away of an idea

 

water to wash, a kind of treasure

 

and what if the voices were kept?

 

every brick here some hand laid

 

a city has to drink 

 

some have dropped their coins in the water

these are the last coins of the world

 

there are stairs up to the other light

 

we hear the singing still

 

#2426 -- the other woman in my room

2426

7.233

23.viii.26

the other woman in my room

ekphrastic for an untitled painting by an unknown painter of an unknown subject

 

gloss of lip

she’s been laid flat, propped upright here

now two-dimensional

watching

 

a kind of ‘come hither’ with a bit of ‘fuck off’

 

trapped here, some might say

 

or I know that this room is her home

 

that I am just passing through

left only to imagination

 

I could be anyone too

 

#2425 --- not Constantinople

 

2425

7.232

22.viii.26

not Constantinople

Sultanahmet

 

 

every city holy sailing

every brick is blood

 

dead of the night arriving again

but here the night is alive

 

some things are still here

the queue of Bosphorus tankers

Niniveh quinquereme in a certain light

Hero, Leander swim for it

 

Yeats never made it though

 

everywhere men are carrying things

fridges and Turkish tea, your lunch

sometimes there are little wheels

 

cars will stop for each other

a little courtesy

 

and the sea does its thing

 

some rush, others beckon

it’s life at any other pace

 

a pavement could trip you up anywhere

there are several kinds of caution required

 

I am that kid in the sweetshop

tooth never sweet enough

I’m a great disappointment to them

 

come sunset when

it make you want to sing

golden like this sea

 

 

 

Yeats never made it here