one million elephants couldn't begin to understand

I'm tired. The end of the day can't come
Soon enough. The umbrellas have been busy today
And everything I own is dripping.
I've answered your questions and can't answer
Any more. Let me sleep the sleep of the drained.

Please be tactful. Make allowances.
Walk further than before. Explaining is nothing.
Age hinders. Evening faces depress us sometimes.
Rain also. Turning around is impossible now.
Meaning is in the emotion not in the display.
Only say what won't hurt. It will be alright in the end.

It's impossible she said as she fed the elephants to
Think clearly before nine in the morning and the composition of
Works of genius has to wait until at least after sunset
And as the maid brought breakfast in on a tray made of the best wood
I thought about all the great works of imagination not yet made

And of lunch, which was to be steamed eggs and spinach, perhaps.

Oh my mouth hurts! The things it says.
I was raised (by mouth) to be an idiot .
Out of the mouth of babes comes so much truth without words.

I clean my teeth because stupid words are caught in the cracks.
You know I can be really fucking funny.
Listen. I'm trying to speak without speaking. I'm not sure it's working.

My truth is not your fact.
Your truth is not my fact.

Truths are not facts.

If you could be a metaphysical conceit, which metaphysical conceit
Would you be? The feather and the career in social work? Yeah, me too,
Though I have a soft spot for the soft spot and the intransigent cunt.

"I can't marry the toilet attendant - she's below me.
I have standards and won't go lower than a bus driver."

I've been trying to explain things I've never understood
To myself and a hundred and twenty other people

You know how sometimes when you start talking
Things begin to come clear that were until then obscured by fog

A moment of clarity arrives as if by the hand of a divine messenger

ADVICE I'VE BEEN GIVEN TODAY

You don't have to be feeling energetic to play badminton
You don't have to be hungry to eat
You don't have to be feeling sexy to have sex
You don't have to be sleepy to sleep
You don't have to be stupid

Oh
My job would be so much easier
If we had no language
Every day I could just come to you
And give you a blank sheet of paper
And you would be dead impressed

SUMMER READING (Poetry First XI)

Marlowe’s “If It Were Not For The Sheep, My Love”
Shakespeare’s “You Remind Me Of Winter, My Love”
Herrick’s “To The Working Girls”
Milton’s “I Can See For Miles”
Wordsworth’s “She Lived Behind The Shopping Mall”
Byron’s “When We Two Partied”
Shelley’s “To Some Bird”
Keats’s “On First Opening Your Front Door”
Arnold’s “From Here I Can Flee To France”
Rossetti’s “I Wish I Could Forget, My Love”
Yeats’s “When You Die, My Love”

1.

This year is a special year in history
Because we have been filling it with ourselves

2.

My tears are in a plastic bag and it’s got a hole in it la di da

TODAY’S EMOTIONS

Sincere
Melancholy
Frightened
Happy

Already I already miss thee already

Hopeless
Stupid
Whatever
Happy

(My hair is gone from curly to straight because of this, but I don’t have words to say how that “feels"....)

I’m shaping up for some kind of fight but I’m not exactly sure
What kind of fight it’s going to be. I’m in a place I’ve not been in
Before. I’m in company I’ve never kept before and I don’t know
What they’ll do or be like or how I’ll react. You’re never too
Old to learn. The elephants on the farm tell me not to worry –

They say it’ll be ok. I wish I could be sure.

Before an Englishman can
Speak it’s necessary that his mouth be
Surgically opened. English eyes see
Only a short distance. When Englishmen
Fight it’s the foreigner who suffers. All
The world stops its ears when the English
Begin to tell them how to think. English clothes
Are not made in England. English children
Learn to swim in the rain. When in love
The English are not the French. English manners
Dictate that a gentleman take off his hat
Before making a decision; the absence of hats
Explains the absence of decisions. The English
Are not Scottish or Welsh. When
The English travel abroad they take England
With them.

TYPHOON KOPPU

Woke us up at 4:30 in the morning
Breaking trees

The English for táifēng (台风) is typhoon

Nothing to do today
But watch the workers pick up the broken branches

Sometimes when I am feeling lost and lonely
I go and talk to the horse; sometimes when the horse
Is lost and lonely he goes to look for other horses.

EIGHT SHORT STORIES (Abridged)

1.

Nothing had ever happened afore this.

2.

It was a good time we’d been having but around yonder corner a bad one was lurking.

3.

During this time of travail we praised the Lord for moments of silence.

4.

An element of uncertainty was embedded within the experience we were experiencing.

5.

That will be summat to tell the gran’chillun.

6.

The last time this happened I knew trouble was a-brewin’.

7.

What will happen after this, we wondered, somewhat all agog.

8.

Next time I’ll be prepared.

“Old Mr. Clapp,
who was in his shirt-sleeves,
trimming the garden-plot,
shrank back alarmed.”

Everything is temporary; nothing lasts.
I remember.

I remember.

The garden-plot.

What was the last thing you said
Last night?
What was the first thing you said
This morning?
What was the last thing you thought
Last night?
What was the first thing you thought
This morning?
What are you thinking
Now?
What is it you want to say
Now?

If you could be John Donne which John Donne would you be?
Most people don't understand this question but I figure you do.

It's the difference between waking up on your own
Or next to a new friend.

SONNET 34

Please once more illumine me with your brightly eyes
I am like as to a ship all at sea having lost its guiding light

Send a message and a lifeline before this dreadful day dies
Your notes revive me for a while until the sleepless night

Some people talk
Too much

Some people talk too much

Some people talk all the fucking time

Remember (we forget it so often) poems have a duty
to remind you that you are alive and can think
but even crappy poems can do that, in a perverse kind of a way.
Some people think 'feeling is everything';
but feeling is only some of it, not all of it. (Discuss.)
'I have had enough sadness'
and I'm kind of bored, you know.

I found a poem at The New Yorker, by Dean Young, and thank God for it, because it reminds me how wonderful and inspiring and inspiriting poetry can be. You are alive and can think, no matter what the evidence to the contrary.

In the world I have quite small feet
In the world I am taller now

I have quite small feet in the world
I am taller now in the world

(I want this to be tomorrow or the day after
Because I am wishing my life away)

I would rather be blindfolded
(Secret marriage kind of mistake intrigue)
Harp playing in factory canteen
(Art for the People)
If you can believe in anything believe it
Optimism, wherefore art thou?
(Oh those were the days, were they?)

I don't understand science
Suddenly something unexpected happens

Some animal is asleep under a nearby bush
It stirs in its sleep

I understand change but not dreams
Suddenly something unexpected happens

TODAY’S NOISES

Sweep of the land
Blasting of some prominence
The Jayhawks

Turn of a quiet page
Knock of arriving messages
Dexys Midnight Runners

Speak of flavour
How to chase a girl in silence
(This is) the Dream of Evan and Chan

Of course now all our plans have been shelved
Because the future is uncertain and we don’t want to
Take any chances. Meanwhile, in other news,

I’ve started to write a very long (epic, even) poem called
SIEGE but so far it’s just a title and there’s a long way to go
And much to endure before it will all be over.