#1602 - three poems for Maggie Ball

 

1602

5.141

20.v.24

three poems for Maggie Ball

 

the loss of innocence

Hydro Majestic

 

put the coin in the slot

took the bottle along

and you could only see the top, mind you

dragged it out of the stable

through the little labyrinth contraption

       

took it out clearly not looking

uncapped it with the opener on the side of the big cold machine

lifted it to my lips

      and

it was water, just water

I knocked on the manager’s door a moment later

got that withering – that knowing – look

it was a sarcastic look

it was ‘I know what you’re about

do you think I’m stupid?’

 

that was how I learnt for the first time

how it is to not be believed

 

 

 

 

realia – protection

 

this mother child for round the neck

and obverse man sainted in halo

long locks long beard

ribs of starvation

 

holy, so long decided

could imagine anyone’s death

and that is the charm of it

to keep you from

by means of

 

a kind of inoculation

 

protection from who we were

who they are

from what has been

and might come again

why not?

nobody thought it would happen before

 

but it happens

when they knock on the door

to take the world away

 

the instructions –

to be born once more

 

who knows

it could be good for eternity

 

a kiss

to keep me safe

 

 

 

 

 

our name

 

he was the one

   who

chief of a tribe, he was

one of, of course, twelve

 

tossed that priest off the hill

I don’t think there was a barrel involved

but there could have been

 

too far back for anyone to remember

though there are still words from that time

 

it was baptisms this side

beheading’s the other

 

and here was the resistance

pure pagan, totemic

with all the gods of far we’d brought

 

he was pitched headfirst

from that hill

now no longer named for us

 

what a story it was!

 

except we were much less than that

turns out we were Jews all along

all the way back to the Bible

 

and this was news of the Messiah

turns out the name was Klein