English Lesson
Imagine you’re a rock, he said. I tried to think hard, solid, as you do. A struggle, for I didn’t feel hard, or solid Back then, I was the kid who jumped away, as you appeared aside the desk. That startled boy, jumping so often, you even asked why? But, I knew the drill, and didn’t talk to strangers I never wrote that poem, imagining you’d say; startled, jumping rocks, don’t exist, right after I’d jumped away, from a thump, that also didn’t exist
James Bond
a drunk being quiet wakes the house (no mystery there) only this time, he’d jemmied a crate, half-inched from god-knows-where, its wood keening like a banshee brought mum down the stair, whereupon the kitchen table, under 60-watt light, diamonds appeared, in her short-sight What have you there? B’Jesus son, it’ll be prison for you! he started laughing, and laughing Diamonds aren’t forever; wrong kind of ice, fish, meant for the Chippy (it fell into plaice) surrounded by growing puddle, and wooden splinters (the wrong sort of chips) years later, he robbed a jewellers sober (no drinking on the job) I asked him; do you see a link? he started laughing, and laughing James Bond, bruv, James Bond
Everywhere All At Once
There’s a place in grief worse than pain A place that scares me to the bone That place where nothing happens, over and over and over again Treacle days where I walked in nothing, and nothing slowed me down a pace Slowly, slower, still, as frames unravelling from cinema reel Somehow Time forgot its name, and Change and Chance did the same How long held between; a photo without a scene? Then shift; a tiny movement did occur? Tiny tremor, tiny stir? Thank god, or quantum fluctuations of the void; jitters restart the film again Whoosh; voices sync with mouths again It’s back; I’m back, you’re back, in a world where everything happens, all at once, everywhere, all the time
Flight of the dragonfly 