one million elephants couldn't begin to understand

THE FIGURES

29 little creatures
5 still sleeping
15 yellowing lights
13 working
90 minutes ticking
90 long minutes
6 dramas of little note
1 man on top of the library

Abstract
Nothing from
Very Little

30 March 2009

MONDAY'S METAPHORS

Our hurts are two pears in a pot
The bed is a harbour within which our little goats gloat

We have the fire's emotional turmoil, the fog's foresight
This casts a shadow upon our future

Across Winter and into Spring
I have no idea why this making of noises

I have no idea what the words I use may be meaning

I have no idea who that was I was being
Across Winter and into Spring

28 March 2009

SATURDAY'S SIMILES

A croak like a crunch of bemusements
A sleep like a death in an idea
A smile like a segment of a star
A lunch like a banquet of laughings
A dream like a horse on a bedspread
A misunderstanding like one of those things that threaten to ruin a ballet

Suddenly I am living with a crazy person
What happened?
The sun came out of its hiding

26 March 2009

A man a very nice man came today
And put his head into the cupboard
Under the sink the pipes were leaking 

Later, some of Emily Dickinson for 90 minutes
Then, a smell reminiscent of flowers, but what is the flower?
I cannot pin a name

Touch my ten toes and tell me the true tale of my heart
There is nothing within me or without me you can't discover

In the morning it's almost bewildering and beyond my frail faith
To open my eyes and feel myself fall all over where you are

You only know
Imperfect is perfect
When silence descends
And it doesn't
Sound like solitude

I've fallen carelessly into a habit
Starlings gather off the balcony

When I break out of this habit
The owl will wait for me this evening

My father's house stands as if in a dream
So many times I have been here before

The habit of a knife time for breaking
Hummingbird on fire - Hummingbird on fire

Meanwhile in other news
The new umbrella
Remains untested
But the new vacuum cleaner
Has transformed
The complexion of our world.

Today the peasants were planning to march but
The sun has decided not to shine so it's been cancelled.
I know someone who is happy about that. Lunch is back on.
We're going to the supermarket to buy yam and chicken.
That's the plan, anyway, but things happen to plans.

My guide dog is a little deaf but seems to know how to make happy
Out of whatever is cast before her. She brings me my ancient maps

And between the teeth marks I can make out the endless roads;
We built those roads, you and me, or people very much like us.

Today is my brother's birthday          but he ignores it
Because he's forgotten something

What the fuck is it?

I put everything I ever owned and valued
In that box is was everything
If I tried to write a list it'd go on for ever
But then you know I am so forgetful, what did I do?

                      .... and after everything had been said
He picked up his bag of tools and walked into the wilderness
The Sun was unforgiving

It's half past eight & nine o'clock is so far away

Her smell lingers here and explains itself the way imagination does:
Even in absence there is presence, she cannot be wholly absent
And in the twilight and all boredomed there's nothing to say but of her to think
But wait, I could be a better person and not all rainy and dull
Tomorrow the bus will bring her, and clouds disappear from up the sky

Look at the Sun she said
It has a halo around it
I looked but it was blinding
So I went back indoors
And ate some dragon fruit

Today is Friday the 13th
A maybe dangerous and unlucky day
Tang Qi was almost hit by a car
But she was lucky
And from a distance she saw a boy she admires
So she was double lucky
Except for he didn't see her
And doesn't know how she feels
Meanwhile I am waiting for you to come back

12 March 2009


We curl into ourselves
The bed is full of feathers

What we put on to our skin turns us into better people
When we imagine our songs the little angels stop and listen

All the sleep in the world is here
Wake up time is soon

Dear Bluebird,

The fruit you sent is most interesting. At first I thought it was a large stone. Then I thought it was a potato. Then I thought it was a large stone again. Against my better judgement I took a cleaver and hacked it into two halves and investigated its insides. I have eaten it, and I'm awaiting the results. The doctor's phone number is by my side as I write this. I trust you, you know that. But if I die because of eating this gift, a gift that was sent with love, I will blame you into the afterlife. You know that also.

Yours,
The Slipper King

IN POEMS THINGS STAND FOR OTHER THINGS (7)

A dream doesn't have silence in it except for some melting snow
Falling into the sun with an anvil on your mind is a waste of time
Seventeen serpents slip solemnly into a strange salty sadness
But in the end everything works out exactly like a sweet surprise

9 March 2009

THE AFFIDAVIT

He swore that his alibi would check out
He'd been doing his ablutions when whatever it was happened happened
She swore he was not who he said he was
She was a little beligerent but also somewhat alluring
I swear they were made for each other

And a barb is a pointed remark
(But we're not listening)
It's stopped raining
And bathetic doesn't mean coincidental
And pathetic isn't the same thing at all
Although we're a little unsure
Of the meaning of anything exactly
Excepting benevolence
Which we are certain means [insert meaning]

We are sitting on top of a mountain of fruit
And when we have eaten it out from under us
We will be younger than we've been for a long time

6 March 2009

The only thing I don't like about being this healthy
Is how I always feel so unhealthy

He pointed to a sentence scrawled on the bathroom wall in what appeared to be lipstick:

"You are more interesting than you think."

Heaven is in perhaps the sky or somewhere elsewhere
The big ships are setting sail heading for unknown worlds

Her eyes are magnets they are part of the attraction
Every distance is no distance at all when you are happy

My heart is a pea in a field as seen from atop a cloud.

Sometimes looking inside he said my head and what there you find
It's enough to make me you know this happiness business is full of holes

He said and it seems sometimes the weather there is short of breath
And sleepless one can hear the mosquitoes talking about myself

Somewhere the pandas are falling out of the trees
It's that time of year there is new leaf on the trees
Spring is arriving and as we run slowly by the trees
I think of saying something poetic about the trees