Musings

[Two more poetry B-sides from the laptop today. These, like the last two poems, date back to a period in the late 90s and up to about 2001, when I thought I could bounce between fiction and poetry. The poems, always ended reading as too prosaic to me, though, so I dug my heels in on the fiction front and--with the exception of the occasional haiku--write prose pretty much exclusively now. These will never see the light of day under my real name, so here they are anonymously for your amusement.]

A Part To Be Played by Michael Caine

Another middle-of-your-
mid-life crisis.

You’re so old at 27 that when the sting
of death-to-come really hits
it will be
a relief. “At last,”
you’ll say, as you grasp
the handful of loose hair
in the shower. “Finally,
the swollen bladder in the
middle of the night.”
Too long have you imagined yourself
a man of superannuation: slump-shouldered
with the burden of experience.
(Enter Atlas bearing a world of weariness...)
As if the spread of belly meant wisdom
when the wrinkles round your eyes are less
from fatigue than joy.

In night-time pub dark,
you still have your moments.
A longing for the sepia residue
of some ancient past. This
is not the behavior of young men:
to indulge myth with such musty care.
A sad anachronism, you here on your barstool.
And when the last lights come up, what
are you left with?
Blushing cheeks and a turn
to fictions:
an old man,
a nasty thing.

You,
making up the deathbed,
will hobble on.


Running: Late Autumn

I’m not one to get sentimental
about

this is not
the fractured smoke
of my concrete city

the mulched leaves, rust-colored
and morning
frost of Northern forest

then a rustle:
a magpie
squirts through the foliage, hungry

My breath in
Unsound silence

(Somewhere
Trees.
eyes are
watching me run.)