I Regard These Things as Good Investments
First thing Felons eat are microwave noodles
on finding their safe house, I left them ready, I knew he'd come,
newscasters splattered salacious missals
half a light year across town, I knew he'd come,
it was 'gators (or was it crocs) he glideth upon Sundays microwaved dish,
no ideas came oozing forth,
I knew soggy white light frightened steam off a highway, other stuff escaped my skull,
I tried to share it around the edges, hoping neon's scriptures would seep in
years after rain gave up; all to no avail, people forget
that last song someone hears may not be that last song they listen to,
no ideas come snoozing forth,
he's sitting there, five days’ stubble, denim jacket, rings of Saturn slice salami I guess
I knew all along he'd devour, and when all of these empires fall
my ankle still will be killing me.
They can hug as many trees as they want,
It's about time these fucking wars were over,
Kathy and Kevin ask my wife to take their photograph
for posterity, standing at a palm tree, celebrating 50 years,
I asked them who posterity was,
they ignore me, graciously thank my wife,
so I hobble away,
remembering to limp on the other ankle this time,
the ankle that turned chicken-shit
when it said it would kill me.
Recently I've been pulling syllables apart
as young boys did to daddy-longlegs,
apprentices to serial-killing these boys were,
me, I'm just as bored but twice as guilty,
a voice having no lives when I steal its ninth,
its cliches were heaped lifeless side by side
before I'd even name-dropped
that electrician
who did such a great job
on Fernandez and Beck -
I regard these things as great investments -
the way the road rises to spite me,
the way I never could say if it was sparks
or if it was fireflies
that left the burning pages
when they lined my books up for execution;
Some nights when sleep refuses to give me Holy Communion,
I dream of telegraph poles that ran out of road,
a few of them on that coastal route
that reminds me of Australia, sand in young mothers’ hair,
people face down in water
pretending to drown to spook their children
It's a twitching array of "good mornings"
bringing this silent truce to its death,
their hairdo babble,
how much liquor
would hit high tide in their lives.
It took one traitor,
a bottle of Smirnoff Ice to give battle plans away,
the death of silence I witness, peace-talks drugged in white noise,
police-sirens alert,
and chit chat's insidious reign
You point out headstoned haunts
seducing our needy highways,
crannies where mitching evolved
into spotty boys and the covens of
whirling Garda i.d. spells;
Alice appears; bus stop cocked and loaded,
cityscape rattling like a wagon packed with dynamite closing in on Cheyenne.
She's your slowest death in a Tuesday morning ward,
Alice, daughter of Elvira Gulch,
some rugby boy in tow - "spoken nicely of by future parents" -
he's silent as your sorrowful eyes allow,
history bleeding from your exhaust pipe,
Alice watching through her fists, champion, infinite years in a row
Though there stands a brilliant white light on a bloody blue night,
water's voice harvests pidgin talk
amongst reeds,
smoke slipping amongst gangling vegetation
which withers that silence, makes it spread its wingspans,
shape its shapes as God prepared to forgive vicious waters.
That made me weep for two days more,
then dry land came, sung songs burned from gangling cities.
I made a rope-bridge from weeds I'd plucked after killing a coal-eyed cobra,
placed across the delta and hoped God's music
could give me ballast, a pan of eggs made warm and over-easy.
Folks who howl at the moon start coming out at 9, early show tonight,
voting-day’s tomorrow,
the waiter arrived in the nick of time with the complimentary mints,
he knew every proton was a work of art
When you twiddle your thumbs as Neptune twiddled tides,
think twice how time forgets you twiddled less than you can bite,
for when you chew something you haven't bitten,
that something bites you,
invariably Mondays, diamond-head elbows pressed on stout-stench coasters,
summer's patience revoked.
And when you see me
with eyes less patient
than light that bites off dreams forbidden to your oral stages -
remember - no-one knows you're here,
this pamphlet will pervert your memory;
ink being a softer way to kill, than you lip-deep now in your own tears
John Doyle is from County Kildare in Ireland. He returned to writing poetry in February 2015 after a gap of nearly 7 years. Since then he's had 7 poetry collections published. His 7th collection, "Isolated Incidents" was published by Pski's Porch in Summer 2021.
No comments:
Post a Comment