one million elephants couldn't begin to understand

25 April 2009

If only for a minute
Then perhaps
A minute is
Enough.

Please read what I've written
In the dust that's settled on top of the television.
Then on top of the refrigerator.

There's a p.s. on my face.

What time is it? The vegetable sellers
'll tell you it's a good time
For beans.
The fruit sellers for fruit.
My watch says it's
Now, between what was and what will be. Last night
Was very cool. Tomorrow or today
I'm going hunting and will come back with enough lunch for all eternity.

..... and then to dance as if
Another person had taken over my body. Into the
Sun and the snow where the only knowledge
Is footprints not your own.....

I seem to be endlessly pacing
Inside a very small home for horses.

Corral.

Penned, but it's only a skull penning
I think, if you can call this thinking.

THINGS MY MOTHER SAID (5)

You can't be interesting
Every day.

19 April 2009

INTO THE FUTURE WITH EYES SHUT TIGHT

Not for the first time I am
Heading into the future with my eyes
Tight shut. The curtains

TODAY'S FAMOUS FIGURES (First XI)

Johnny Cash
Leadbelly
Woody Guthrie
Robert Johnson
Bessie Smith
Howlin' Wolf
Bob Dylan
Victoria Spivey
Chuck Berry
Billie Holiday
Hank Williams

17 April 2009

TODAY'S T-SHIRT

cnat stop - wnot stop - rllo froever

Children, if you need reminding
To love one another, to be always kind to one another,
To always eat your greens and say your prayers,
To wash behind your ears and to think only pure thoughts

If you need reminding (to be continu

The epitome of you
(I mis-spelled your noun)
And even perhaps "mis-spelled" itself
(Someone stole my dictionary;
It was a theiver)
Anyways, the epitome of ewe
Makes me think of:

I am distracted, a model Romantic.
Esoteric doesn't begin to help explain.

Will you be everything you want to be in the loft
Where I will come to the end after long approach?
The noises disturbing our nights fill up
My head's vacuum, men are so un-great, so fragile.
But I can adapt, submerge my abashments.
Oh, the sun is battering the roof tiles now. Listen.

In Guangzhou
A Tesco
Oh no!

(I have been experimenting with this rhyme scheme recently.)

12 April 2009

In the castle the head housekeeper can't abide
The dirty floor. Meanwhile the Prince is at his writing desk
Making an entry in his journal. Music in the shape of
A flute drifts in the open window. The sky has a few clouds
But only a few; today is going to be very pleasant.

We wake early
Before
The light wakes.

All the wolves in the world
Are coming to our village while
We sleep. I believed all the things
You said to me in that dark place.

I am so hung-
ry even a sin-
gle kiwi fruit is all-
uring.

THINGS MY MOTHER SAID (4)

Don't pour coffee
On your computer.

How to explain their enthusiasm?
The future
(You cannot
See it or hold it
In your little hands)
Stretches out like ------- like what?

It's becoming more and more
Difficult to speak and be understood
The frogs outside our bedroom window
Complaining

What I don't understand I translate

Dear Mrs. Poet

I am trying to read your poems.
The ones that look like poems are boring.
The ones you have tried to make not look like poems
By making patterns out of the words
Are also boring.
They make me and my friend shrug.
The Chinese for "to shrug" is 耸肩.
Meanwhile, I notice that the graves have been swept.

Yours sincerely
Critical Boy

In the next episode
We will see how a thing learns from its wrong-
Doing. A small
Explosion leads to a revelation.

Flowers are always welcome, especially
Lilies.

All the words in this little book can be erased with one swish of your tail.
You don't know the power you have over me.

The alternative to
A bad dream of
Work is to
Be on one's
Back in heavenly
Splendour

I have
Eaten too much
To think clearly
Although it is
Really grey today
I see clearly

How morning exercise
Is only of
Real benefit when
One's mind is
Clean and healthy

MY FAVOURITE POET

My favourite poet
Is Seamus Heaney
But if he is not available
I will take Andrew Motion.

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