Poem 449

A list poem that starts as free association instructions but bends into wishes, a prayer for my life and lifetime … I’m imagining myself as monarch of my life … I enjoy the high-handed tone and the subconscious juxtapositions springing from my internal mythology, the way it culminates twice – once with the wish for no slow deaths but this one (ie. my life as a satisfyingly slow death) and again with a wish for the poise at the conclusion to let go of all the multifarious things and possibilities of life having had my fill … I like the rising rhythm here and the negative-to-positive gear change from what I don’t want to what I wish for myself …

( The pottery sherds are about human history under our feet, the spiral arm about the galaxy and universe above our heads … lenses and frogs are from my childhood microscope set … six pm that fixation on the gloaming again, the losing of the light … the small round flat stones are the ones you hunt for as the best for skipping on water … the violin is my love for music but inability to play it … and so on … )

From The Throne

Bring me no hoarse kingdoms
bring me no pottery sherds or spiral arms
bring me no lenses no frogs
or knives
bring me no elastic afternoons
that go on forever
don't bring me six pm in the shape of a mineshaft
bring me no stones
unless they're small round and flat
bring me a violin and you'll go away
with a very funny looking mouth
bring no chimpanzees
no
life is crass enough
bring no baked beans domestic scenes or spring cleans
bring no guilt
no ransom nothing rotten deranged reviled or risen
from between resentful lobes
no bullshit
no things that were better forgotten
bring me no slow deaths but this one

                          fetch me instead old Supremes songs
                          with the original red labels
                          pour down on me 
                          out of fashion theories
                          stupid colours
                                                        that I may bathe
                          bring me vivid descriptions
                          thumbnail lives and portraits
                          bring me everything I haven't mentioned
                          on a tray
                          bring me the plans bring me the brains
                          the lips and the lungs to say yes
                          that

                          then in my own good time
                          the elegant hand
                          to wave it all away