Monday, 28 June 2021

Two Poems by Bruce McRae



Too Much Time Is Not Enough


Becoming old is not unlike

having a rat in the house

Ancient auguries come to fruition.

Artful life is abandoned by the roadside,

an Appian Way lined with crucifixes,

real blood-and-guts oratory for the damned

seeming an earful of wax and honey.

The tower block of my hyperbole is being torn down,

tenants evicted, its basement flooded, a cold furnace

like a bed of coals at Christmas.


Becoming old is much the same as

sitting naked in a vegetable garden.

Your bones turn coat. Merchants prescribe coy medicines.

You're as welcome as a heron in hell.

The heart ticks like a death watch beetle.

Blood is water mixed with wine.

Wild animals come closer, no longer afraid.

Dreams are like a ledger being displayed

to a beggar Harpies wilfully blinded.

I'm always looking for a sock under the bed.

I eat slowly. I misunderstand the moment.



Rainy Sunday Afternoons


The museum of stumbling

blind through the earth.


The museum of ennui,

of forgotten stories,

of intangible slights.


The museum of want and water,

icy slush in your shoe,

the odiferous violet repeating itself.


The disenchanted museum.

The museum of barely discernible moments.

A museum where no one

has ever been before or since.

Where the very search for meaning

makes a mockery of reason.








1 comment:

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