13/04

uproot completely, go with the dandelions

to where matter matters –

shadows grew and shrank

and grew. still

I went harried through dusk

into darkness of sky, darkness of mind,

desperate to take a cold bath,

imagining my blue lips

sucking milk straight from an udder.

how I wanted a woman’s body

prone over my bare back, her forehead

pillowed in the nape of my neck,

breath of perfume, perfume of peppermint,

cracking my back like ice on a footpath

to find terrain more solid!

I wanted to suck the coloured light from fountain

streams, museumstuffs and the moon

but urban life had numbed me

and the proof of this was

I did nothing but think, speak and write

pursuant to the numbing.

it was what I was.

numb from staring too long at my own reflection –

even the subtlest twitch of eyebrow

struck consciousness like a stone in

a subterranean lake. was it any wonder

terror polluted the drinking water?

the modernists had shown the terror with mangled bodies

and maids who laughed at odd moments

but the trope now was to show things as they were.

I went harried through to morning,

drank a glass of coconut cream and rum,

my body smelling of weevil-ridden flour,

the bathtub fallen through the floor.