Ghost Mail

Leaving the lights on
to keep my sleep light,
I wake with a fright.
The light bulb had blown.
 
Opening my eyes 
to a somber glow,
without a shadow,
I wait for sunrise. 
 
As my thoughts travel
backwards to the fear
of dead sleep,  I hear
a step on the gravel,
 
and the thud of mail.
Junk, save, in my hand,
a card from a land
where deliveries fail
 
by still-born delay.
And I’m reminded
of the worst, blinded
by the light of day.

Resurrection 

A knee that needs somewhere to bend down
buckles and the body tips sideways
but the brave soul is a capable clown
and jumps up on one leg. Dionysus be praised.
But the balance is precarious, a fall
is inevitable, still give it your all
while you can. Poor Lazarus is raised.  

Testament

After Verlaine

Life is a brothel.
You pay for everything,
and always some more.
 
No matter how well
you perform to bring
joy or pain to the whore,
 
nobody must know
what really happened,
or not. The bill’s binned.
 
The law against it
is a coat-hanger
for pimps to exit
 
waving a banner, 
for hell here below
has nowhere to go.
 

Le Monde au pied du mur

Sacre guerre
 
                     sang impur
 
Crise de coeur
                       sans secours
 
Dur cuir
 
              bien sur
 
                           l’ordure
 
est mûr
 

Exit Janus Bifrons

I weep with one face, and laugh with the other.
Then crawl for cover behind my carapace.
The best camouflage for a life sur le tard
is to smile through old age with a risus sard-
onicus. Hemlock in a homeopathic dose
will ensure the fixed grin. C’est la mort en rose.

Pour Toi, Mon Amour’

After Jacques Prevert

I went to the market for flowers
   And I bought some flowers
             For you
             my love
 
I went to the market for birds
  And I bought some birds
              For you
              my love
 
I went to the market for scrap
  And I bought some chains
     Some heavy chains
             For you
             my love
 
And then I went to the market for slaves
      To search you out
     But I couldn’t find you
            my love

 A Marriage (Danta Gradha, No. 81. Courtly love poems from the Irish)

O the bond between the fox
and the stork on Govan Rock
bound the stork to fox for life,
to fox-husband she’d be stork-wife.

A foolish bond it turned out
for soon enough fox found out
his stork spouse was a mistake,
and fox love became stork hate.   

Once while stork-wife lay asleep
Reynard looked on , bareing teeth
took her to his twisted breast,
bit her head off from the rest.

Woman vow and men betray;
that is how we are today:
you fox-husband, me stork-wife,
so much for our married life.

1975