Here's one of those poem things

A poem by Nathan Thompson

Morning steps

I try my best to spend my mornings.
The radio is distracting. The plastic flowers
on the desk stick out       bling       a kangaroo in Moscow.
This is not Moscow. I don’t know any Russian
and am politically inactive
because of my revisionist upbringing.         It’s good
thinking about you. You’re like reading
a poem by Frank O’Hara, but being a lawyer
I guess you must be more structured. Either way
look out for dune buggies.

                                    ‘A guy’ called Gridtin
has appeared on my computer screen
highlighted in red. Name only that is.
It’s hard to think about him and his problems
and you all at the same time so I think of you
and the mellow guitar of your still not hostile hair.
Time for a cigarette. One of the ones
I gave up yesterday.

                           Back now.         Gracious,
this poem’s so much about me it’s not true.
I sometimes think I can’t care about my lungs very much.
Music is something to do with smoke over my tonsils
or you          and it’s very sunny the way
the squirrels jig around in those trees
avoiding water-bombs         who’d have thought
sand made these windows just for me
instead of passing the time

                                            And
In the meeting room?           What are they saying?
I bet they’d be talking about you if    
                 saying “watch out for that dune buggy!”
I’m not sure this is in good taste. It might
leave a lemon in the mouth beckoning
towards cleaning fluid         which is never looking.

How we’d like to say hello to the octaves on the beach,
the height of waves between your toes
at work in your shoes in your legal office
where the wicked witch presides
over another sundering.          “It’s enough
to make your feet curl
and give you irreparable cramp.”          That’s where
this started and spindled out
like a spider at Christmas receiving a gift,
which is the biggest hooray today
next to thinking about you.

                                       And maybe
avoiding dune buggies is on your wish-list
along with refreshing hour-glasses.           I’m
going to turn this upside-down again
spilling plastic flowers everywhere. Keep looking. 

 

© Nathan Thompson,2007

Comments

[Cheap Dune Buggies]

Either way: Watch out for dune buggies!