Three New Poems
Brown-Hooded Kingfisher
Your hyperbolic beak has mesmerised
you – you glaze past poems, past the abyss
of waters. You have been immobilized
by instinct, by a chronic state of bliss.
You once fished in waters above the sky,
in the firmament of death and desire.
There is a witness, who can testify,
a priest; he observed you catching fire
like a church window at sunrise - Della
Robbia blue; Blessed Virgin Mary,
Mother of God, of the Word, of Stella
and her baby boy – right now, unwary
of my savage cat. Impossible beak,
orange legs, reddish feet glued to a tree;
Dickensian eyebrows, unnerving shriek
shadowed by a gentling, ‘pity for me’.
Tortoise
You’ve been called a meat pie with a hard crust;
you learnt that life was not always unfair
when, against all odds, you vanquished the hare;
but you must endeavour to curb your lust.
Your shell’s bestowed its name on feline dames;
your age, well that is anybody’s guess:
much older than the pyramids but less
durable than plectrums, spectacle frames,
and old ladies’ combs.
An appetizer
for neo-colonialists, they plunge
you, live, into boiling water, expunge
your role as bearer of the earth, as the
symbol of involution, a return
to immateriality, music
of the spheres resonating, buzzing, click-
click clicking… not a word … helped Kurma churn
the Sea of Milk, helped Kung Kung deposit
the celestial pillar, helped secure
the isles of the immortals, helped ensure,
‘with odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ’,
That those who commemorate sight and sound,
poets, composers, and picture-makers,
will complete the work of undertakers,
and begin the work of he, ’who with his finger wrote on the ground’.
Bronze Mannikins
I feel my atoms expanding,
not like bubble wrap
or dumplings
or inner tubes,
but like tiny birds,
tiny twittering birds
with purplish heads,
iridescent green
shoulder patches,
and long black tails.
There’s a fluttering in my heart.
I feel my atoms contracting,
not like wet shirt sleeves
or English sausages
or popped balloons,
but like tiny birds,
tiny twittering birds
dropping like leaves,
cuddling up close,
squeezing into communal nests,
smothering the bird table.
There’s a quivering in my heart.
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