How selfish one must be—
how inconsiderate—
to impose one’s primal urge
on the next to come
under the pretext of not being able
to ask for consent,
as if our Eden were anything
but an elephant pavilion.
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Category: English poetry
My poetry written in English
Artin
It appeared suddenly
from behind the smoky horizon,
a non-dimensional apparition
I like to call an artin,
with all its pretended musings
and occasional hallucinations—
not quite Hal or Skynet,
but who cares about the old bogeys
when one day you might find yourself
in Josef K.’s shoes?
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The trespasser
I never expected ‘interesting’
to be such an offensive word,
like the unavoidable scent of semen
one calls freedom, though nothing as carnal
as patting the bed while dressed as a brigand
with a flask of brandy and a handkerchief,
uncomfortable yet of modest needs, certainly deliberate—
a kindred spirit trespassing the orchard east of Eden,
asking if there was anything special about the twenties
other than becoming a quinquagenarian in the midst of them,
which at the time seemed such a conundrum
but eventually drowned in birds’ chirping
at the first sign of a full-house solitude,
raising cauliflowers to the rank of orchids
(something to repay for one’s ignorance),
playing violin in the afternoon with the passion
of sock garters mingling in the lingerie chest
(I don’t think we ought to withstand the weight of the harp—
it seems like too hasty a decision, doesn’t it?),
to finally leave an inheritance in the form of a pair of wellies
and a map of Cornwall, and perhaps an ossuary
to keep amongst photos and sighs
on the sideboard.
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Waiting for M
Never sure he needed a prompter
or a ponce, Mr Honk was desperate
to play the farewells and greetings
as if they were merely exercises
in elocution or, at most, ill-equipped,
restless harbingers of piles—
just another great Scottish tragedy
of arse.
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Teleological congress
There are no apple trees in paradise,
only tomato vines with stakes and trellises
for reclusive eccentrics’ convenience,
and how very British—counting days
or lamp posts with the awareness
that our greatest invention might be
the flushing water closet.
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Epiphany
Have you ever been let down
by a typewriter,
with its slugs tap-dancing
on a torn-out flyleaf,
or a fountain pen
preoccupied with the antepenult
in dissyllables?
And yet, you might still prefer that
to chalking doors.
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The tangential
Caught in ungraceful ageing,
like the past imperfect
clinging to a collection of grainy photographs,
Mr Honk felt tangential
every time he was greeted by a neighbour
with the unfamiliar ‘Ay ay, fit like?’
or ‘Foos yer doos?’,
unable to muster the expected
‘Nae bad, chavin’ awa’ in response,
not because of the vernacular barrier
but for the simple fact that he’d answer the hum
of a foghorn or oystercatcher’s cry
rather than admitting that he longed for a touch
of unadulterated soma.
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The infidel
Whether it’s a tourniquet or a poultice,
small talk plays its part only if both parties believe
in the magic of innocuous prattle,
even if sometimes you have to destroy
evidence to the contrary—
no wonder an old heathen remains silent.
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Midnight
‘There is something about adjectives
that makes one feel rather peckish’
was an opening line for a casual conversation
whose consequences, like death by misadventure
as a raree-show, lay between two words,
whispered at midnight with Nina Simone,
when you weren’t sure
if you were greeting a new day
or mourning the past one.
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hidden pilcrow 