#363 - two poems - first snake & selfie

 

28.xii.20

363

two poems

 

first snake

(kookaburra’s watch)

 

I met my first snake for the year today

… that was yesterday – 27^th December

I had to check it was …

others had reported this privilege

and much more impressively

this one could have been a shoelace dropped

          worm on steroids, GT stripe

             red on the black

only just showing, as if well worn

(when actually the latest thing)

 

and had I not been wearing glasses

might have stepped on

 

it was

(let me anthropomorphise)

blithe, oblivious

on the way pondward

which it could not see

but why not, just on a whiff?

and on the way

 

no selfie together

and I didn’t have my phone

so, really, this is all I can show you

 

of course I could find file footage

but one slight

might never show

 

could it harm?

this one had no idea of the odds

 

timid and little

hoping a way

still, a bad name for poison

 

and slashing is good

and boots de rigeur

 

in grass so green no camouflage

every perched branch watching

lazy laughter and the laser eye!

 

that little snake was no symbol striving

it was a bad year almost gone

 

ought to get a wriggle on

 

 

 

 

selfie

the giver of alms

 

I was there

in the dustup star once

 

stood in the dock condemned

 

counsel asked

is the murderer

the same boy skipped stones

to show his sister

 

kind moment in the cruel heart

 

I was the tadpole made it

red tooth and claw

 

the one who regendered

made monk or soldier

are these one in the same?

 

none ask of sanctity

 

the person of three gods for instance

a ghost written book

 

as if in the one life

butterfly, beast

 

was Joan d’Arc amoeba once?

of course and wolf and fire

 

often it’s asked of cradling bub

am I my father now

 

will chubby hands catch sovereign?

 

named or not

who this one will be

 

say Christmas

and a favourite tipple

 

in corpse light

all these ages after

 

was I the same as

never ash

 

dust’s poor dogma

 

we are each of them still

they are us

 

Villon’s danglers

 

they are on the nose

with whom

but feel these deaths

 

they’re stone

and the larger stone

say mountain

and larger than that

have a moon

run round

 

all motions of our oneness

 

first the wind

nothing to breathe but time

and no one calls it

but each of us still

 

call beginning

don’t know

 

I am all of them  

you’re all yours

 

the desert here between the rivers

in, yes, was paradise

 

I am not waiting for anyone

I am at the end of the line

 

and now

before the names are lost

 

the unknown every woman man

the nailed up

kicked down

driven

 

hurl a stone for him her

you one eyed cannibal brute

 

it’s someone always saves the day

 

here where the tree lies felled

still ripe among ripe fruit