Have you ever seen an elephant
swimming in the ocean, and to Beethoven at that?
Beautiful, isn’t it? Perhaps,
but before you ceremoniously place that coup de foudre
in your Altoids tin, next to all the treasures
you’ve been collecting forever, think
about whether you really saw Rajan smiling
or if it was just the telly acting as a mirror.
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A dumbbell in my ribcage, like a dead weight
on a chopping board, pulverised—
a change of air might do it good—
and yet still carrying on
with its tedious staccato,
as if nothing ever happened.
Would it shock the ladies?
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There is nothing like father-son bonding
over car washing on Saturday afternoon—
even if rendered futile by the torrential rain—
on the long list of childhood gaieties we’ll try
to forget for the rest of our lives.
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There’s nothing like a rainy morning,
after long days of sunshine,
to convince you that there’s a carrying power
somewhere out there that keeps the balance
until it pours to the point of flooding,
making you realise that it’s all just a numbers racket.
That’s where you are truly wrong,
because even a wicked scheme assumes a will
where there is none—but you won’t hear that
from a bookie.
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With every line a liability—
and Ea von Allesch out of reach—
I can’t leave my expectations
at the mercy of the em dash.
And while I can always hang a thousand words
celebrating the forlornly sought-after mortality
of Death itself
on the wall,
there’s no need to be overly dramatic—
everyone deserves a postmortem, after all,
even the slightly hysterical.
Isn’t that what a pied-à-terre is for?
Perhaps.
Unless you make it your living
room.
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I’m trying to recall when
a caress turned into a doss—
a simple muscle memory feat—
only to dissipate like an ache
after double paracetamol
and the cold shoulder.
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Will I ever be able to live
up to my autobiography?
The last time I tried, it ended
in a rather embarrassing entanglement
that continues to suck my soul
and wallet dry. But that’s to be expected.
At some point, we all have to deal
with a few surprisingly large numbers,
whether it’s a jackpot, a brief’s tab,
or a boneyard plot digit.
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When you find yourself vis-à-vis with the routine
horrors-turned-tattle, a walk down St Fittick’s might help,
even if the beheaded watcher’s house no longer guards
the graves from resurrectionists and unsolicited graffiti,
and you face either the leper squint or the rusting corpse
of a tanker abandoned in Nigg Bay. ‘But will it help?’
And how should I know? I’m only the poet.
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A creature of the word—
doesn’t that have a nice ring to it?
Who would have thought that we’d turn
into creatures of paper?
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hidden pilcrow 