Belonging

The neuronal idyll,

The metamorphosis,

Comes solely from reaching

to the outstretched branches

Of the candy floss clouds

of like-minded people

Perfectly just like you

Ode to the spoon

Behold the spoon

Whose limbless form is tribute to our own –

Its usefulness variant upon its steely brain

Or silver, if it pleases you

To have something so useless as to lie in a box

Of crushed velveteen

No sustenance in its wide lips

Except at Christmas.

No, behold the humble spoon

Proud, erect as a solider

Whose duty is to vitalise  

From once a wee child

To the grizzled infirm

With soup and gourds and gruel

Erstwhile guarding the tributaries forming

On one’s chin.

The spoon is a true chameleon:

The poor man’s castanets

Retired to lay side by side,

Knowledge of the other’s round form

Intimate and blunt

It will gouge your heart out with the bluntest blade

And serve it up so beguiling

For someone else to feed on

Shoulda

The mandate that "I should"

was not the golden ticket:

Instead the switch you've flicked, it
pulses electric 
paroxysm

vibing down my neurons
Circumventing safety valves
melting down the wire

into bat shit fucking crazy

The mandate that "I should"

was not the golden ticket:

Instead you've flicked

My neurons

into bat shit fucking crazy

Watermelon

Welcome! Please take a seat
Exchange some politeness:
The strangeness of the weather, and now:
Sandwiches - layering pleasant
Before - I hesitate -
You must absorb the truth:
As I will be relinquishing

The delinquent in

The room - not my fault!

This result!

Yet I’m listening to you speaking

I can hear the words you’re saying

but I can’t quite compute:

Why is it that you

Think that we do not do

Enough to push through

That whom you pushed through

Into the wide world. It

Might seem I'm churlish;

(These words are in my head)

But you're doing my head in!

I can hear what you’re saying

You’re paying – certainly paying

But your words don’t make sense

You speak dollars and cents

And get so incensed!

But surely if it's homework:

That’s got to be your bag.

I won’t ring your doorbell after hours to nag.

Will not roll out my sleeping bag

Set fire to your lawn as I brown

My poor-man’s supper;

Get indigestion over comprehension.

(Have you got any cocoa?)

No and no and no!

We’re all doing our best:

Johnny didn’t pass the test

Johnny didn’t do the essay

Or the story

And the glory

You anticipate

Will surely evaporate

Unless you both cooperate.
Now it's back to sandwiches
Something nice:
Handwriting style?
The next one lingers at the door
Time to build my next rapport.

I can hear what you’re saying

But ten minutes are up.

Your turn to batter up:

It’s your watermelon, lady.

I googled you

I googled you to see if you had died.

Typed [name] + death + dead, to slide

Well past the point of grey to black and white

You hadn’t replied,

You must have died!

Was I aright?

A search revealed in 1489

Presumably, an offender of that time

Like smallpox, plague or St Anthony’s fire.

I eulogised. Sermonised.

But never cried.

The truth of it mystified

As days went on, intensified.

I googled you to see if you had died.

But you hadn’t.

Ode to the dandelion

Why don’t we venerate

Dandelion flowers?

Smiling in colour

Humble, golden simpletons –

Insisting they love you,
not:

Multiplying infestations

Dog-eared yellow; viral

On a pristine lawn.

For what if the fluff

of dandelion flowers,
The seed heads that drift

(soft fairies; spindly spirits)

Were blessings of joy:

Those downy, white spheres

That glance past your nose,

Quivering in your delight

As you set them all free
Dispersing in the wind

Like the spirits of butterflies.

They pirouette in the upstream

Scattering every which way,
Flitting to the heavens

With all your good intentions.

The Paper Feminist

He gives you nothing but a good fuck

Read that carefully:

He – gives - you - nothing

That you said you wanted

But folds you up,

Contorts you like origami –

Once you were a bird, but one fold more makes you a

Hollow box

Where he will keep
All his things
As inside you curl, fetal
And you'll take your share
So you don't care - You will 
keep a spreadsheet
take what’s owed.

Won’t you?

Limbs locked tight,
Do you ever think
of how you’d fill yourself?

Do you still recall

where you wanted to fly, little bird - 

A feminist?

Or, do you assert 
that this was your choice,

Independent women invest -

You’re invested!

With eyes wide open while the hand

closes around you

Tonight you’ll feel him smudging your lines,

Folding you into smaller pieces

A bird unfolded and remade into a box,               

Doubled over to make a lid