Called Upon by the Professor

 

I was paying bills when Professor H.,

dressed in his salt-and-pepper tweeds, appeared

and clucked, too long a victim of catarrh

and clerical miscues. The wrong iota,

sense goes awry, the statement gets misfiled.

He raised a saturnine brow. “O loveliest

of trees,” he said and decrescendoed. No

spot of ink stained where he’d stood, no scent

of laurel filled the august empty air.

I turned myself to text and death, his two

permanent acquisitions. In the heat

the cherry blossoms fluttered, though no breeze

rattled my papers. Unhappiness, he said,

is best unspoken. Sweet are the uses of

pomposity. Pains and chains and silence.

I Thought of Mr Pickwick

 

Just then the phone rang. It was Tiny Tim,

Tiptoeing through the snowdrops for a goose

The size of Uncle Scrooge. He had a heart

As big as individual distress

In every house and hovel. He had news

Of trials and sponging houses, and his dad

Had totted up the reckoning at last.

I thought of Mr Pickwick, who redeemed

A condominium in Venice Beach,

Where all the sunny blondes were wearing smiles

For Michaelmas. He beamed benignantly.

Remember Mr Fezziwig? he asked.

His claret was to die for, and he sent

Jacktars around the globe and back again.

He died in chains and stalks the streets at night.

Archival Studies

 

The cherubs in the margins smile and wink,
All rosy incunabula; the winds
Blow puffy cheeked from four directions, there
To warn you off the edge, whence you could slip
Into oblivion, no name, no scribe.

One of the i-dots seems a smiley face.
Nature is natural and carries on,
Despite instruction. “Conjunx” is misspelled
And might mean anything, though nothing good.
The ink is mixed with blood. By DNA

We know he was related to a Name
Still snippety by Domesday Book. Some fee
Installed him here. It wasn’t all the smarts
He evidenced: one comment we translate,
CALL GWENTY FOR A GOOD TIME. Great. Woo-woo.

Over the page the scent of sanctity
Still hovers. Must be subject-matter, all
Those humble dragons, saintly beasts with scales
Who found no virgin wanting. It is not
The ideal cursive hand. Those drips. That smudge.

Survival comes in packages too strange
To be secure. So say the sheep who died
For the appointment faintly on the verge.
A lunch, perhaps, or matins. By strong light
We can discern that something lies beneath.

News Break

 This appeared in The Poetry Bus.

Iffy, but rain more likely than disaster

Tonight. Disaster later in the week.

Volcanoes on the cities of the plain,

A flood and instability to follow

Cold, like the primal disengaging wind

Across the surface of unlighted skies,

Empty and without hope of being filled,

Expected, as is promised every year,

Delivered rarely. Make your reservations.

Eat first. Say ‘bye. Dress for adversity.

The cormorants are coming. They bring news

From Iowa: new prairies have been found

Studded with galleons, like golden nails

On inky beds. Wind freshening, the east

Surprised by dolphins. Three old men walked out

Of an abandoned mine in Agate, late

Last Tuesday morning, asking for a beer

And word of Good Queen Bess, fetters around

Their ankles. More on this if there is more.

They Flee From Me

 

And the small birds flee. Me, I lurch
Down the brick path, as though the fence
Were a destination, low church
Of last resort. Sing in past tense,
I warn the high birds on high branches.
They can feel light. I can feel dense
Bricks and palings, boundary chances
To stand firm. And the small birds sing
Inexplicably. See, they search
For song, they say, in everything.

But You're Not There

 

I thought of you a while. It didn’t have

The consequence it did. Upon a time,

Upon a bed, the thought of you would raise

The spirit levels of the cold: they praise

Famous men who will, I own a brave

Preference for the something like a dame.

But not tonight. Perhaps it’s the cold rain

Stippling the cherry tree. Maybe the bills

Unpaid, the trespasses still indisposed,

The door unlocked. The window never closed.

Somebody needs to troll Memory Lane.

The phone. But I’m not taking any calls

Tonight. Tonight I thought of you. Forget

Our debts. Tonight the world is getting wet.