i was reading the satanic verses
in a hospital bed as the drip rinsed
the remnants of an overdose
of antidepressant from my veins.
the doctor said i was lucky
and i agreed with him,
the book was great.
Tag: poem
*** [sometimes i think of my foreign language]
sometimes i think of my foreign language
teachers. i doubt they remember me. i certainly
forgot the cyrillic alphabet, the latin declension,
the scribble on the margins of the hellenike glotta,
the tricky pronunciation of streichholzschächtelchen,
and the mockery of the poor monsieur jourdain’s trill.
sometimes i think of my foreign language
as passing.
force of habit
i sleep
on my right side
facing her as if she
were not sleeping
unaware.
then we dream
of all illocutions,
unfortunate remarks
and deliberate
omissions.
i still sleep
on my right side
facing her as if she
were not sleeping
elsewhere.
a poet. anonymous
hi, my name is… bleak and i am
a poet. anonymous as i would be
if i were handing down a word
from an auctor that i have found
myself attached to, somehow
forgotten, a long time gone,
i am regaining that first person
singular i was supposed to be,
the once abandoned punctuation,
and the disorderly grammar
of everyday expectations.
perhaps i am still a bit afraid
of capital letters. the odd burden
of solemnity attached to them
neither blends with absurdity
of the rituals around closing doors,
nor does it soothe all yearnings
for a little peace of belonging.
but in the scheme of things,
if what actually matters here
is essence over appearance,
i may still have a word to say.
*** [untitled twenty]
innocent of thought cruelties
the poet examined the truth
conditions of the utterance
questioning his intentions
towards the late mr nothing
as if there was a post-mortem
carried out by a grammarian
that might have cast a shadow
of blame on him as a creator
but it was actually mr nothing
who noticed the first signs
of weariness with the role
he played in the poet’s life
the questionable repayment
of his younger self’s debts
who had to be abandoned
after all he was just a play
on words never invented
*** [untitled nineteen]
a direct question from a reader
flustered the poet as he walked
along the lines of monteverdi
so he replied something brief
and ran before the lone barnacle
got hold of what he actually said
and mr nothing asked him later
he believed the word was ought
perhaps a call for moderation
hardly resembling his absurd will
to have an incongruous notion
of what constitutes a character
old enough to become freely
disappointed in himself
*** [untitled eighteen]
as he pored over the ancient
maps of the land of purple
mr nothing remembered
his home at the crossroads
and a whirlwind’s laughter
at those thrown into the dark
then it was a quiet night after
he recited the curse of ham
and he had no recollection
of who put a shabby book
on the bedside table instead
of the middle eastern news
over breakfast he wondered
what the difference could be
between matzah and taboon
if both could feed the hungry
or become mouldy when left
forgotten in the haversack
*** [untitled seventeen]
the ability to appreciate a little gift
from someone who barely knows
the predicaments of holding the door
for a casual passer-by never meant
to become a vanishing art cultivated
only by the ageing one mr nothing
found on yellowed pages of memoirs
forged by the poet for the sake of it
but even if he called him frivolous
accusing the poet of only playing
with words like portable atheist
propounding his own belief system
nothing less than the portentous
profundity of negative concord
would bother the unenthused poet
in the face of mr nothing’s unrest
*** [untitled sixteen]
if the stench of burning
from the eatery downstairs
painstakingly depicted
on the handmade paper
is ennobled when written
then the poet will suffer
from desperate expedients
for encouraging nonsense
if playing with the rules
of inference is empowering
the semantic nuisance
inhabiting untitled stanzas
imposed by the begetter
then one day mr nothing
will not hesitate to use
the poet’s typewriters
hidden pilcrow 