6 extracts from Geometries
Ye gods! annihilate but space and time
And make two lovers happy.
Martinus Scriblerus
Cylinder
He's straightening me out - hairy trunk
heaving orders, on a roll. Calls me
a barrel, "the pillbox", flips his lid -
then down to the Casino, squat, self-contained.
Back with pale morning blues, blank-faced.
One in a million, lost on a spin. Gives
that look: that without me there's nothing
to turn on, nothing to keep him from rolling
out flat.
Parabola
I stood on a platform once
and idly lobbed an apple core
clear across four rails, two
platforms, watched it pot itself
clean as you like in a wall-bin.
Wasn't thinking. Just let brain
take it, calculate the trajectory,
spark the impulse down my arm
judge a million factors of weight,
inertia, friction - to get it all
dead right. Then went home
stepped smack bang into a blazing
row, over missing dinner
by a clear four hours.
Triangle
Three may be a crowd, but at least
I can manoeuvre what they're up to.
To be swayed, yet hold sway; not be
the thin edge of the wedge -
that's the Golden Rule. And take
an occasional turn at the base.
He's so bloody sharp. E-mails late
with invented meetings - but
whichever angles I query always add up.
I suppose I'll have to break it
some day - turn up at their rendezvous,
attend his wild windmilling attempt
to explain. Then beeline out
as they straighten up at table,
fly off into parallel lives.
Mobius Strip
Same old twist in the story, same old
helter-skelter. She's always turning
the screw. So here I am for the wheel
and the poison. Same again.
Her veins, almost, on the croupier's hand.
The rouge et noir of her face.
In theory I couldn't lose -
all on red, all on black. Just keep
doubling up - as long as you can
sign for infinity.
So who's the beaut swaying with a gin?
Send her a round from me.
She slips in comment. Double entendre,
catch her drift? Ah - back on track.
But as she fumbles with my arm, loops
hers under and over, I can't shake off
a feeling - something like déjà vu
from the wrong side of a ribbon of glass.
Squares
Seen, not heard.
Each evening we sisters
sprint for his a attention -
stand in line, report
day's misdeeds. Mother
attends. He drills us
with his look. Doesn't know
I let boys touch.
Then all at once his
angular jaw, pallor,
surfacing the silk backwater
of a pine box - Gone -
and I'm out there suddenly
joining the parade, playing
hard, making fly-pasts
of grey-sideburned inepts
till the sisters find
my bottles (their sugary reds
and greens) rattle them
in my face, march me off
to therapy. Where I learn
I'm looking for a Father and
trying to stash bottles against
siblings who slaughtered me
at hide-n-seek.
Arch
We each bent over backwards
and fell Made of space no good
We stood over the dark lake
of ourselves, in a desert Trunks of stone
Can we lean now, each
towards the other - meet in the apogee
brace a single day, an afternoon
on the pier?
Our children enter with the look
of impostors - their own
tumble like Keystone Cops If not
for ourselves, then for these
the crown of an effort to make
in our shadow, some meagre fruit?
magazine list
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
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- North, The
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
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- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The