Love's Labour Lost

Forever lasted on average five years
at least according to the latest statistics
at least when it came to love

And in that time
her eyes had become deaf
to the deliberate eloquence
of his soft roses
bored with his practised
spontaneity

Was it good for you?
he would ask and she'd smile
the usual lie, as she struggled
back into her clothes
and murmur a goodbye

Pointless to sleep over
to face the breakfast inquisition
his insistent "was it good for you?"
as he doled out eggs and bacon
to feel the flicker of his anxious
polygraph eyes across her face

Taking the fifth as she bolted her food
an excuse not to respond
unresponsiveness becoming a habit

no, just a quick peck and a sprint
to her car, to sleep in her own bed
comfortable, undemanding

and as she drove,
she thought of how arduous
their ardor had become

and though they had done it all,
how to say to him it wasn't
enough

Love when it has lost its lustre
isn't like those warmed up leftovers
which often taste better reheated
especially if hot and spicy to begin with

It is more like actors in a play
mouthing someone else's words
playing a role, struggling to give
the illusion of emotion
- until the curtain falls anyway

Old News

The old dirty man
Sleeps beneath a heap of newspaper
And dreams of fishing as a boy

Sunlight on water
Sunlight on silver scales
Sunlight warm on skin

The newspapers are warm
The newspapers are meaningless
- He cannot read
The newspapers are his

He hugs them close
Warming himself with dreams
And yesterdays news.

Nothing Special

On the bus
the fat girl
reads her romance
a starving child
looking at pictures of food
she licks her fingertip
and turns another page

At home the man watches TV
and thinks about writing a book
in a year he will think of it again
as the screen flickers
as he watches TV

In the club
Underage girls dressed to the nines
promenade about
trying not to look like
they are trying to be conspicuous
flowers hunting for bees
bees sting

A man afraid of life
Becomes a buddhist
When he was christian
he was Mark or maybe John
Now he calls himself Tenzing
And tells himself that
something has changed

A woman drags herself
to her job every day
and drags herself home
she daydreams of something better
then drags herself to her job everyday
and drags herself home

The young boys hang about
Self-consciously dressed in their version of cool
in ten years they will laugh
embarrassed at how they dressed
as others laugh at them now
as cool changes

The aging executive
who hides his bit on the side
pontificates about the latest economic news
he thinks he is right, he is always wrong
he always thinks he's right
and others pay because he is wrong

Looking each morning
At the sideshow mirror on the wall
they hide from themselves
The distortion,
that everything is fine

The true mirror tells that
everyone is no-one
and everything is nothing

And the world crumbles to dust

Cheep Trick

It starts with a small, pale, ovoid container
Filled with a thin sticky liquid
And a roundish yellow lump
A hen sits on it
And warms it for 21 days
Or thereabouts
And then a chicken magically
bursts forth

What happened to the goo?
How did the chicken get into the egg?
Or are the chicken and the goo
Somehow both the same?
(unlikely as that sounds)

I still haven't figured it out
(I was just as mystified by
The caterpillar-butterfly trick)

I scratch my head
The chicken scratches dirt
Neither of us comes up with anything.

Bat Haikus

Bat Haiku #1

The bat can only see
by ignoring every voice
but its own


Bat Haiku #2

Night begins to fall
Bats fly into the sunset
they can never see.


Bat Haiku #3

The bat loses its voice
And loses it's sight
Darkness becomes darkness again


Bat Haiku #4

One bat loses its hearing
One bat loses its voice
Both twice blind