Epithalamion

Zeus the Thunderer sent his golden rain,

Which fell at the wrong address, like orange juice.

Not having been invited, Nereids

Did not attend. Nor wood-nymphs. Neither fauns.

The guests arrived by Greyhound, on the Beagle,

Borne by two wolves named Love & Happiness;

And Dionysus brought a box of wine.

Hephaestus hit the cake with hammer blows,

Which scarcely cracked the frosting. Siva sent

Regrets, cerise bacilli, and a drum.

And Dionysus took his singlet off.

The bride wore orange blossoms and a snood,

Which Ceres blessed with lucky charms, her vows

The death of childhood and a Liebestod,

The groom brought all his horses and a halter,

And even Fafnir, stag but looking, wept,

Especially since the wedding cake was hollow,

Busy with carpenter ants and worker bees,

Suspended in lemon custard. And the fall

Began. The groom would end dragged by his heels,

The bride pent in a harem, Ceres’ child

Stuck, still in Hell, and Dionysus’ date

The sport of kings. Zeus sent a nice clean rain,

And all was gone, except for the photographs.

Chains They Forged In Life

The poems no one heard of populate

This verbosphere, invisible and bleak,
Dottering incoherently in dry
And crumby cupboards, turning bedsheets gray
On sleepovers, making little girls pale,
Afraid that they have accidentally bled.
Elegiac and embarrassed, full of tropes
Disparaged by Seleucian kings, most tell
Stories of unrequited jealousy
Engraved on stone with sponges, vetted by
The underappreciated and the fat
Recipients of Golden Books and schmaltz.
A few are goodbye letters, never signed.
A few are tax returns, unaudited.
Some lisp. Some swoon. Some have these wild ideas
About the immanence of outer space.
They drool. They belch. Complain. Complain. Complain.
They like a mirror, write they backwards verse.

Not Dissimilar To A Speeding Bullet

At high speed, celerity like forked swifts,

Fast tracked, and scarcely time for banks and breath,

The world does business, busier than you,

Though you can’t find your hat, your heart, your socks

Gone walkabout; and all the bees are bright,

Even as summer hollers like a kid.

Be not afraid.  There’s nothing you can do.

The shadows swarm with life lived off the books,

And you all in the red.  These are attacks,

Happily falling like a falling star.

The Shores of Light

This appeared in Angle.

When on the tepid shore
Of the great and greasy lake,
We greet each other, which
Weapon will you take?

Reproach is never failing,
Forgiveness always new.
I fear the most no light
Dawning between us two,

No pain of recognition,
Nor shock grown frail and old;
But bitter light extinguished,
Unspecified and cold.

Doing Cambridge

Cambridge is just a town. The B & Q,

The Spar--they sell the things we buy at home:
Bacon crisps, bird nuts, those vacuum-paks of screws.
Doesn't seem much like wisdom habits here,
The flagman said, and pointed at the sign.
To Let or Toilet, one of those. The sound
Of mobile phones or angel choristers,
One of those, unsettled the browsing ducks.
Considered taking wing, they did, but stayed,
And after practiced evensong for crumbs,
Birds of paradise in their bright green hoods,
The porter said. You can't go in there. Them
Is proof of the existences of Jutes,
Angelic doctors, the actutest choice,
And girls so daft they make your head explode.
I pressed my face against the leaded glass.