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Tony Dash

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Moussorgsky’s ‘Pictures At An Exhibition’
(In my rented bungalow)

Bydlo

Sometimes, mowing the world, things insinuate themselves
in spite of the noise, into the upper shoulders,
where extraordinary lunar landscapes
must be smoothed with intelligent fingers.
But I’ve never known how to ask you.

After work I return to the bungalow
with a wheelbarrow full of unsaid things
that have become such a dead weight,
it is necessary to pull the barrow
like a tired ox drawing a cart.

In the corners of the rooms there are heaps
to which I have been adding over the years.
These things make poor compost and only break down
into words, that will not rot or go away.
They say themselves in the back of my neck.

Each burdened morning I resume my work,
the wheelbarrow groaning under a weight
of undone nights and half remembered dreams,
the horns of my resolve, worn and blunted.
Backwards and forwards, a recalcitrant bellowing.

 

Page(s) 47

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