He broadened the borders of my playground,
conquered all and all of them, even the bad’uns
from the bad ends, which served as conkers
in times when games were still just games –
needing no rules or playfulness.
I only ever cried when
we buried our first dog,
at my grandparents’ allotment,
which burnt down soon after -
and another line deprives access to the sea
we stand on the pier paralysed like all
those stories about a group of friends honouring
the final wish of one dead rolling through countries and bars
cross crossroads with the promise of ashes scattered along the coast
but once there can’t do anything other than turn circles
wandering is an aim in itself (when setting off on a
journey choose the furthest route) something constantly
piercing through out of the background like a wave function
explicitly describing the edges of body
*
We live a stone’s throw from the west. Like in the movies, whatever the change is.
The sky changes colour: battered, unbeaten, its green turning violet
yellow bile all over us. A plane cuts the screen at a prearranged point:
women and children with their faces on the floor, men returning years later.
They hold bottles filled with petrol, their heads high. Even, but without vocals.
They mistake hunger for desire, transparent they spit pips from the most recent spring.
The count off does not end before sunrise. Illnesses put out into the corridor.
As long as you remember to touch, wash your hands. Extinguish your heart in rusty water.
You will dream of christenings, I’ll dream of a gold tooth. Sand will fill the swellings.
for Eleni Sikelianos
When I think of poetry, my lady friends
think of soggy spliffs,
but me, I think of noses and hash pipes.
When thinking of my lady friends’ poetry
I feel like a little fish caught in their sweet sights,
while they think of turbines and propellers.
