Future Bright

The young man from St. Bees, his future bright,
Has always seen the best in people, true,
But he is not an optimist: each night
He checks the door locks and the chimney flue.
His motto is Once stung, forever shy,
And he’s been stung. But he’s been fortunate,
Freed from the worst of neighbours dropping by:
The glad, the clammy, the importunate.
A styptic pencil’s on the pantry shelf,
To hand for accidents and unplanned slips.
He has no allergies, and spares himself
The griefs of gambling and relationships.
There was a time when he was bold and daring,
A time long vanished, as he found it wearing.

What Kind of Flower

What kind of flower is this? Does it relate
To someone’s vision of the world? Who cares?
Who gives a damn fig whether Anjou pears
Are poires d’angoisse, or just how much I hate
The idiot notion that Nature and Fate
Are intertwined, as if somebody dares —
Some little deity, caught unawares
By oceans’ size, or that balloons inflate.

Don’t mention wasps, the delicate precision
Of walrus tusks, how prairies got so flat,
Recurved beaks, bitter nectar and the bat,
Or nictitating membranes’ spirit vision:
I’ll have to treat that with total derision,
Just as it deserves. I spit on that.

How I Feel Now

I feel your presence, like a urolith
Stretching my tissues, ripping up my flesh,
Like snarling black bears in a Christmas creche,
Poseidon’s Cetus in the Perseus myth —
Use anything at all to hurt me with,
Deposit me among the stalks you thresh
Before you start, wrapping me in wire mesh,
Pretending you’re a working silversmith.

I don’t like what’s been happening here, see?
You took my unused, sleeping heart and burst it,
Wrote the melodrama, twice rehearsed it,
Made me bless love for releasing me
And thank you for the happy comedy,
Until I woke up here, alone, and cursed it.