Poem 296

Suppress, express, catharsis – how do you let go? … a poem up to its knees in mud, revisiting the April is the cruelest month theme of spring and the persistence in memory of ridiculous (in this case TV) images and sound playing in the background at the crucial moments your life branches, lodging like a nail in your brain that you can’t shake free …

… the full Mouseketeers’ singing sign-off was M – I – C see you later K – E – Y why? because we like you! …

… yeah, just not enough …

Behind The Lines

well hello
                 from spring's
narrow cafeteria birds opening their beaks
to emit dying screams of worms 
                                                           iris bulbs
going off like landmines purple spraying flames
of shrapnel and heartblood
          Flanders Field has a long memory
          meaning forty tonnes of high
                                        rotting explosive
come out each year each fresh ploughed up
spring
             but it will be less
             it will liquefy and go down
             or work its way up
windscreen glass out of a scalp

             more to the point do you remember
when I got off the bus in a dream
and came to your house in the afternoon
and we watched the Mickey
Mouse Club on tv and I kind of sort of
                asked if you ever had trouble
                getting me off your mind
                like maybe I had getting you
                off mine
                               (landmine)
and how at the end of the show the mouseketeers
all drifted off in a balloon singing
                  M - I - C
                                  see you later
                  K - E - Y
                                  why?
because like Flanders Field I tend
to keep taking out the dripping
remains of those kinds of moments
                  keep paying out in terms
                  of a little quickening of breath
                  seeing a photo
                  of knowing exactly who called first
                  or last

but this year
                       this heavy 
seventh spring
held you down for good
couldn't wake 
you in me
                                               this is just to notify
                                               I've forgotten you

please
don't laugh