AOK

Why is poetry important?

It isn't;

I couldn't say;

It's like peace during peacetime,

a struck penalty kick.

Who remembers it?

Teenage anarchists and wilting flowers,

enemies of syntax,

pissant cartographers.

Asleep

I woke up at 1:38 and thought

            "I need to write a poem about cephalopods".

So here it is.
It's not very long, or very clever,
but it is done.

The Walk Home

I leave the warm room,
dough dried to a pleasing rime on my hands.

The street is slick and dark
the rain the distant clack of a typewriter pool.

Past the empty Pilvax
(a waiter hunched forlorn)
and the police tape, cast into mud.

A grey dog approaches, ears pinned back.
edging past red-painted MURDR
his tongue lolls, he smiles and shows his teeth.

Up the stairs, two-at-a-time.
The light is on.
I must have left it on.

Noosphere

There is this
and then there is another place outside inside everything
where all the rivers in our hearts empty out
a hummingbird at dawn
a shooting star
in the desert, the bleached bones of a long-dead thing

Leave the glass floor with a gentle push of your bare feet and send yourself into a watercolour cosmos

00:27

Storm.
Moving away in the night.
Count the heartbeats after the flash...
The rumble is languorous, folding in on itself, like a soft-bricked building imploding.
The streets are dry.
The city sleeps.
Insects bump against the windows.
Wait.
Listen:
Here comes the rain, softly now.