Tag: Abendland (page 9 of 12)

symbolic of our electrical impulse
simple swift & filled with dreams
fast flowing rivers sweep away all
these tedious fears & expectations

& dump them at a delta somewhere
marry them with saltwater tears
then disappear forever rivers
flood the villages irrigate graves

flash like camera bulbs as in
the olden days catch our passing
in the picture cage & trap us there
until the sepia fades away dust

& highwater marks on bollards or
levees – surge over the dry wastes
of our skin our lips our hair &
ears deprive us of light & bury

all our memories under silt &
rain – or else call it pain & pass
over like the thunderbolts inside
a storm from this island’s past –

we are a part of these silent rivers
now – we are the same these streams
& me until the next tide swallows up
this flotsam we will not be free

here the stencil art seems
more restrained or better
placed (my favourite so far
a do the right thing image:

chuck swastikas in the bin
but then there’s the rifles
silhouetted soldier slogans
like ‘make your own world’

these meanings are clear: &
all for a spray can or stains
graffiti’s private symbols i’m
in no position to appreciate

or decipher like city streets
off the main thoroughfares
their messages become tawdry
old worn-out & finally disused

day broke inexorably over
the sunshine cobbles over the old
habsburg plaza over the electric
trolley buses over the coffee grounds

in the cup over the roma woman
shooshed away over the music store
over rat svetova over mikhail
bulgakov; the russions are coming

have come have gone (i negotiated
briskly with the taxi driver & he
ripped us off pretending to tour
the town centre all of it super!

of course prima! much nicer than
sofia natch) then it breaks the
serbian day like a raw egg over
the city over us over the poet

†

(Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master & Margarita)†

†

For Keiji (again), I compose
a few lines. It’s useless. Iíll
never be a haiku writer. My
destiny lies amid the Cyrillic

paperbacks, apartment blocks
& spines of books Iíll never read
or pay to have published. If we
are poets then cities are Koala

Strawberries, rotting cherries in
cardboard boxes. We’ll write poems
on them, then laugh at ourselves,
we beautiful boys & girls. As the

autumn wind blows in from some
obscure clime, between seasons,
on the floor of the disco, dance.†

Sunspot on the wretched ikebana.