Poem 461

A cascade of images toppling over each other, room for amusement and beauty by turns .. the last lines owe something to Scott Walker’s Plastic Palace People …

( I like all of this but will mention the first image of looking up through trees at the sky and the perfect description of its colour (blue milk) … the image of the mantis flexing … the moon as a cut loaf … sun a circular saw … shades of sunset like burning paper … the reversal of skyed child and grounded balloon … )

Summer Saturday

As the afternoon wore on
its head a canopy of leaves 
                                                        bright blue milk
and planes that bobbed like corks
around the sky
                               kites of every nationality tangled
and lovers in parks moved like long swings
eating each other’s hair
children hunted through the bamboo and hydrangea
armed with false teeth and gardening forks
a praying mantis raised its square eyes
and tried all its hinges one at a time
the river grew slow and thick
losing count of its bridges
a moon appeared large and white as a cut loaf
bells yawned and waggled their tongues
shaking out forgotten music from behind their ears
the circular sun whined and bit through the rest of the day
separating the milky afternoon that peeled
and yellowed like a burning sheet of paper

towards evening a crying child drifted slowly
above the houses disappearing over the city
behind him a balloon
rolled lonely 
                         across the lawn