A Satsuma for Neruda
(after Tony Harrison)
I like to think Neruda would have known
the sultry groves where tangerines are grown
and fancy he meandered like a breeze
between the ancient, heavy-blossomed trees
in sallow skinned but bison-hearted youth
inhaling deep the citron-scented truth
which came to fill him en su corazón
and fed the words he fed our hearts upon.
Satsumas make a fitting metaphor
of what his life and poetry were for;
to peel the loose skin gently from a heart
to tease each fleshy segment part from part
first bitterness then sweetness, each in turn
acidity, desire, quench and burn
love making in a world of taste and feel
where every human heart is easy-peel.
December, 2008
Arse Poetica
With a nod to Archibald MacLeish.
A poem should be touchable and cute
As peachy fruit
Succumb
As my eager fingers to her bum
Perfect as a capital B
Toppled through ninety degree
A poem should be flawless
As girl skin in its prime
Immune to age, invulnerable to time
A poem should be seen in silver light
Mooning sweetly in the depth of night
Unadorned, a poem never show
Against coach window in a contraflow
Nor unveil in precinct 2 a.m.
While one’s friends assail the ATM
A poem should mean
Not be
The steam that goes to heaven
From one's pee
September, 2007
The Pork Pie Hat
I saw him the other evening, shuffling home from mass alone
a little sun-dried chilli pepper of a man wrapped in too-large tweed
his shrunken head topped off with a little pork pie hat.
One time his leather strap had spread the chillies on my tiny fingers
so I curled them in the pockets of my pressed grey flannel shorts
carried the warm tingles like glowing coals of shock and shame.
I remember how he held onto his desk for extra purchase
how the temple veins stood out, how he gave my still-soft
phalanges and carpals all the rage and fury of a grown man.
Look how time has shrivelled and shrunk, and taken away
all the anger, all the power, all the righteous justification!
I wonder does he shelter shame in that little pork pie hat?
January, 2009 |
