She’s an obsessive person.
Three sipper bottles lined up
under her bedside cabinet
powerful medicines stacked
alphabetically to help insomnia
silicone builder’s ear plugs
in case of unexpected thuds.
Age brings to us
its array of disturbing tics
I myself suffer from
a raft of strangenesses.
Therefore I fill your filtered water
speak the same bedtime words
pull your door extremely softly
knowing you shall never sleep.
Stood apart from the crowd
beautiful to someone
averse to the screaming bawl
of scampering kids
bespectacled beribboned
leant against a wire fence
ineffably lonely
the red ball trickles under
your feet
howls to throw it back
mocking jeers
at your lousy kick
that sends it shuddering
way off target.
I feel your shame
your scarlet embarrassment
and I too should like to die
leastwise decline my head.
I never understood
how much you loathed
the sun.
Coming from a tropic island
perhaps I should have
comprehended how
the dazzle scorched your
frail myopic eyes
dehydrated your candle-
princess skin. I’d be horrified
how you drew the drapes
disallowing even a slither
of light. But I am a bear
from a dour climate
a singular basker
who revels under
the ozone glare
embraces melanomas
and shouts out vampire
to those who wish to dwell
in darkness.
In my fourth-world country
it is the custom
to decorate bus-stops
with lurid paintings
of our local animals.
As you motor
into my seaside town
taking the cliff bends
way too fast
there’s a jovial walrus
to poke fun at your city manners.
He is sat on impeccable sands
befriending a common
whiskered seal pup.
They make everyone smirk
forget the torrid heat
melt into the heady
sea air
purge the accumulating
angst poisoning their lives.
If I had an expansive
mahogany dresser
an attractive fountain pen
a virgin-white ink blotter
the notorious Russian winter
tempesting outside
I could compose
such miraculous music.
Wolves would sing
their implacable sorrow
the steppe dirge a ground bass
overflowing with grave
nostalgia
heartfelt final silence.
Under a pinus radiata
where the rhododendrons
grow
our love flourished
sickened expired.
In the scented eucalypt
grove we exchanged vows
I wove you foolish daisy chains
we kissed and giggled
in the loud aviary
our love more gorgeous
and bewitching than the
bright macaws. You grew sick
your sunlight waned
I stroll alone
throw a gold coin
in the ornamental fountain
wish so much for you.
I know I have
one immutable friend.
The driving rain
chastises me
the grating shingle
scours my soles
the gulls squabble
like malodorous children
but my boundless ocean
is gently melancholic
a compassionate spirit
who reprimands
the night-ghasts
foams reassuringly
over my valiant
time-bitten feet
as they wade out
into history.
In front of a grubby caravan
a stringy youthful girl performs
perfect cartwheels.
I think how her hands
might be abraded
on the rough shingles
but clearly she doesn’t
give a fig. Her father
a brutal hulking man
ensconced in his deck chair
by the caravan door
is barely alive.
If I had a daughter
like you
I’d be whooping
and clapping
at your impeccable turns
until you curtsied
and gave your doting
father
a great sloppy kiss.
