Tag: poem

with no one to blame
to bear a grudge against
for all the things that
could not have happened
in a slightly different order
of personal pronouns
mr nothing took a picture
of the full moon marked
with blooming phlox
and some onlookers
holding their umbrellas

they both knew the ordeal
of nocturnal vigilance
in the trial by cloudburst
it was a story like many
typed for the innocents
with a questionable purpose
if only the poet stopped
laughing before he decided
between a stolen remington
and a smith-corona
found at a flea market

mr nothing never thought about anything
useful words like scrumptious or innocuous
and caressing on the tip of his tong slipped
their social obligations once freed from
the trammels of heathen grammar rules

he tried to hide his seams from the poet
rarely questioning if things need meaning
to have a purpose and just out of interest
in a hollow subject learning injunctions
his impunity was assumed as a birthright

exploring the anatomy
of timeless classics
in smooth leather covers
with headbands made
of mercerised cotton
mr nothing found a sketch
of himself and the poet
sitting on the floor
between the shelves
drawing some daubs
on the pages of books

it used to be a place
for recalcitrant siblings
mastering the art
of emphatic period
with a few premises
and a bowl of porridge
they no longer read
anything but notes
on flaps of the dust
jacket of russian realists
and the stock leaflet

the year the greek derivative
locked the doors marked
the windows with colours
wandering on derelict streets
pebbled with stones
and the cry of seagulls
mr nothing realised one
more of a curse likely being
called names or spat upon

he forbade the poet a word
about the theognidean corpus
in the covers of don juan
as if encomia to larcenists
kept his desires hidden
in a genderless language
there were no suffixes
to betray him in public
only the consequences

every time a fever made him worry
about gardening mr nothing thought of the poet
with his treats of personal chastisement

eerily aloof he watched himself drowning
in the passage of time measured with a litter
of hardly collectible paper ephemera

as pointing to never read lines of montaigne
made him realize his desperate longing
for the unfinished in times of duress

mr nothing lived a solitary life
spiced with a dose of word
supplements taken from a speechless jar
and a daily granite mile that avoids
infected armrests and door handles

sometimes the poet called him
with an adage or a dirge sometimes
there was only the flutter
of the turning pages
there was no wind though

after the rain an umbrella become a burden
bare foot standing in the water
running slowly down the folded surface
mr nothing was holding on
to the intricately curved wooden handle

and words that lack a person people
with mispronounced affixes he forgot
the poet left him typewritten
on a stolen remington
every letter stopped halfway

mr nothing looked at the poet regulating the traffic
on a window ledge invaded by firebugs
and returned to wiping his fountain pen
as if it would clear his thoughts in the process

he found a secret merriment in taking apart his time
as an impersonator striving for every punctuation mark
collecting monologs in tandem and old photographs
of children and elderly using handrails

back then a mutual acquaintance brought him a picture
of the girl in a red scarf but he missed the chance
to tell her about the river don of granite city
or the scent of the north sea in bonfire night

she may never answer to an old neighbour’s ay ay fit like
or burst out laughing as she runs to the mercat cross
when the rain comes down on a summer day
this is the privilege of dreamers and their dreams

And many desired her, but none knew her all the days of her life […]

The King James Bible

the odds were against them
his beheaded body marked her
with lonely repetition of depictions

mr nothing looked at that of michele
the tenebrist knew the maid’s eyes
riveted upon the act would miss her tears

and the drapery in reds used to be
the adornment of the lovers’ line
not of the slaughterhouse backdrop

when leaving the palazzo barberini
mr nothing just glanced at la fornarina
a sword in her hand would go unnoticed